The Light-Field (50 page)

‘Once the antimatter is released into there and encounters nothing, it will dissipate. Fortunately antimatter is very fragile,' Kestler stated with a broad smile, as Taren kissed his cheek.

‘You truly are a genius.'

‘Good … leave it and go.' Mythric was up on his feet and feeling stronger. ‘Lucian and Telmo are in the recon vessel.'

Zeven nodded, realising this was it. ‘I'll see you this morning?' Zeven held out his hand to shake his father's in leaving, and Mythric clutched his wrist and pulled him into a hug.

‘Take care, son.' He pulled away. ‘Take care of the boss.' He grabbed hold of Kestler and then leant down to take hold of Ringbalin, who stirred and looked around. All the metal, cement and machinery was the botanist's worst nightmare and the look of horror on his face said it all, really.

‘It's okay.' Taren helped Ringbalin to his feet. ‘Mythric is taking you back to Module C.'

‘Thank the universe.' He grinned. ‘'Cause this place is awful.'

‘Go!' Mythric interrupted to prompt Zeven and Taren to get on with it. ‘Are you just going to wait around for Khalid to come back? Move!'

‘Okay, already.' Taren joined Zeven, and he gave her a reassuring grin. ‘Here we go, ready or not.' Inside she was thrilled to be heading
into the final leg of a journey that had been somewhat longer than expected. She was glad now that Lucian had insisted on accompanying her, and as her thoughts turned to him she was spirited away to his side.

 

Professor Kestler was rather shocked when two of his saviours disappeared. ‘I hope we're not travelling that way?'

‘We most certainly are,' Mythric informed, when a pulse hit him from behind, closely followed by a blade in the back, which brought Mythric to his knees. ‘Son of a bitch.'

Ringbalin still had hold of Mythric's arm and he dropped to his knees beside his only ride home, attempting to focus on loving healing thoughts to prevent his friend dying.

‘Reverse the stream on bio-containment.' Khalid moved in on Kestler.

‘There is no getting it back.' Ringbalin spoke up in the hope of distracting the villain from beating up on the old man. ‘It's all gone!'

‘Wrong!' Khalid taunted, as he whipped out a small sample of the colourful gas that he had contained in a transparent prism.

‘Oh shit.' Ringbalin was unnerved when he saw it. ‘My advice to you would be to get rid of that real quick.'

‘Why would I?' Khalid scoffed.

‘Because that gas is very volatile when it changes its physical form, and it's changing its physical form.' He directed Khalid to check it out.

The rainbow light the gas had exuded for years before today had changed to a brilliant blue. The gas had formed a sphere whose core was alive with electrical activity that was building, pulse by pulse. When the energy began to spark beyond the confines of its prism, Khalid put the prism down on the work bench, whereupon the current latched onto the work station and began engulfing it. Kestler joined Ringbalin further afield.

‘We should release it,' Ringbalin advised.

‘You release it.' Khalid looked really ill, and although he tried to teleport himself elsewhere, the pulsing light from the prism was debilitating.

‘It's going to take the ship,' Ringbalin said.

‘But we're not going to be on it.' Jazmay grabbed hold of Ringbalin, who still had hold of Mythric. The old professor was pretty eager to take the Phemorian's hand too, regardless of who she was or where she was taking them.

The current began spreading rapidly over the ship, like a wild vine claiming an old temple ruin.

‘Hurry, Jaz!' Ringbalin urged and as they dissolved into the light field of the transpersonal teleportation experience, a huge blue light-flare from behind propelled them forth.

 

‘Well,' Telmo said, with a serve of discomfort. ‘This is a lovely surprise.'

Taren manifested in the co-pilot's seat and found herself on Telmo's lap. ‘Teleportation is not an exact science,' she explained her embarrassing predicament.

‘Taren.' Lucian, thrilled to see her, switched on the autopilot and vacated the hot seat. He moved into the rear cabin and Taren climbed off Telmo to join him there.

‘Want me to take over?' Zeven motioned to the pilot's seat.

‘It's all yours,' Lucian granted, taking Taren in hand to kiss her. ‘You freak me out,' he declared, so pleased to see her.

‘I freak me out too.' Taren understood completely.

‘Me too,' Zeven called from the pilot's seat.

‘This lightshow is freaking me out,' Telmo commented on the changes in the gaseous matter they were headed toward. ‘Are we all very sure this is a good idea?'

‘Wow.' Taren gripped her arm — the buzz coming off her Juju stone was getting really intense, and both she and Lucian decided to sit down.

‘Are you all right, Zeven?' Taren worried about their designated driver.

‘Look at the size of this thing.' He sat back and stared in awe at the brilliant blue sphere forming before them. ‘I don't think I could miss that if I tried … so relax, will you? O-oh —'

‘Don't tell me to relax and then say o-oh.' Taren and Lucian came forward to see what the concern was.

‘Why is Khalid's ship as blue as our friend up-front?' Zeven posed the question, and Taren couldn't understand it.

‘Kestler said all the substance in bio-containment had been ejected?' No sooner had she started to panic about that, when Telmo suddenly let out a yell and startled everyone.

‘My arm's blue?' He held it out to show them, and gasped again when he noticed they were all turning blue.

‘Feels kind of tingly, don't it?' Zeven smiled, euphoric.

Taren looked to Lucian. ‘Here we go again.' She smiled, and his kiss was the last thing she felt before the exhilarating buzz overwhelmed all her senses and swallowed her in etheric light.

As consciousness dawned, instinct told her that she should not have been asleep. Teleportation did not involve losing consciousness, only a brief light-filled sensation of travelling without moving — something had gone horribly wrong.

The light was harsh. It was a struggle for Jazmay to get her eyelids to part and her watering eyes to focus on her surroundings. It appeared to be a regular United Systems restraining cell — it was nowhere near enclosed enough to be a psychic containment unit.
How did I get here?
She raised herself to a seated position, and had to laugh at the sad attempt to restrain her.
Someone has no idea who I am, why even bother locking me in?

Her humour waned as she realised she was not alone in the cell. A couple of her crewmates were laid out around her, along with an old man. One of them was dead, that much was certain, as the odour of decomposition attacked her sense of smell with a vengeance.

Her first guess was that it was the old man causing the stink, but he was still pink, warm and breathing.

‘Ringbalin?' Jazmay moved onto the young botanist, who also appeared to be resting peacefully. ‘Oh no,' she whispered, as she
turned her attention to the last of her comrades. She didn't have to check to know that he was the one she'd failed. ‘Mythric …'

There was a large wound that went right through his back to his gullet — she'd not even realised he was wounded! The events of her mission had unfolded too fast for her to notice!

I was supposed to be teleporting us back to AMIE
, she noted.
What happened?

Fortunately, Ringbalin had begun to stir — she needed to know what had transpired prior to her arrival on Khalid's ship. All she'd been told by Aurora before she'd departed was that their team was in trouble and needed assistance to teleport back to AMIE.

‘What happened?' The botanist moaned, as he brushed his fine blond hair from his face. He raised his glasses from where they had come to rest around his neck, and he appeared discomforted by the predicament in which he found himself.

‘That's what I need to know.' Jazmay assisted him to a seated position, whereupon the smell registered and he noticed the dead body lying alongside his.

‘No.' Ringbalin protested, upon realising who it was. ‘I did not heal him in time —'

‘And I did not get us to our destination either.' Jazmay felt now was no time for regrets; she needed to figure out where they were. ‘What happened before I arrived to collect you?'

Ringbalin was clearly rattled by the death of his crewmate, who had become something of a father figure to him over the years. He reined in his surging emotions but the feat caused him to visibly tremble. ‘After Taren and Zeven left to rendezvous with the captain and Telmo, Khalid returned,' he recalled, his eyes opening wide in horror with just the memory of the event. ‘He stabbed Mythric from behind, but I maintained contact with him, hoping to heal him before death came …'

Ringbalin crossed his arms over his chest with hands tightly tucked under his armpits, well aware of the present danger that his dark mood posed to others.

‘Then what?' Jazmay's tone demanded he focus on her and not his loss.

‘Er …' He frowned as he put aside his distress to reflect, and once again his eyes lit up in recognition and horror. ‘Khalid had a prism.' He gasped as he realised the implications of the memory. ‘Shit!' he cried with such conviction that Jazmay flinched.

‘What?' she demanded, annoyed, until she recalled the instance herself.

A small prism, emitting pulses of blue-white light, had been the centre of attention when she'd arrived on the scene. ‘It's going to take the ship,' Jazmay quoted what Ringbalin had claimed, right before she'd attempted to teleport them out of there. ‘Take the ship where?'

‘Back to the Universe Parallel with the captain!' Ringbalin enlightened her. ‘That prism contained a sample of the gas anomaly from Oceane, the same anomaly that the captain and the others were using to hitch a ride back to Kila's universe. Anything that gas —'

‘Being.' Jazmay corrected his terminology. ‘That gas is our higher consciousness.'

‘Okay.' Ringbalin humoured her. ‘Anything that being had contact with when it shifted universes would have been dragged through its self-made wormhole with it … just like last time.'

‘Okay.' Jazmay wasn't completely convinced by the theory yet, but she'd roll with it. ‘This could be a cell on Khalid's stolen US battle cruiser, but why would he lock us in a standard prison cell, and not a psychic containment unit?'

Ringbalin was stunned by her logic. ‘That
is
a good question.' He said.

‘Because Khalid didn't lock you in here.'

The answer came from a high bunk bed that neither Jazmay nor Ringbalin had realised was occupied.

Jazmay stood up, and when she saw who their company was, she scowled. ‘Khalid,' she announced, which shocked Ringbalin to his feet also. ‘Why are you in here with us?' She couldn't fathom how
any circumstance could land them locked in a cell with their arch nemesis.

‘Large reptiles have taken over the ship, and from what I gathered from our conversation, they plan to eat us later,' he explained, sounding quite resigned to the fact.

‘Orions.' Jazmay knew the creatures to which he referred; they were the bastards their captain had braved another inter-universal jump to hinder. ‘You spoke with them?'

‘They used some form of telepathic mind invasion technique to communicate.' Khalid frowned. ‘Very painful, don't try it.'

‘You killed my friend!' Ringbalin finally unleashed his grief on the person responsible.

‘I did do that, didn't I?' He sat up and faced Ringbalin, his dark eyes completely emotionless. ‘Not too sure why now.' He shrugged.

‘That's it?' Ringbalin was offended. ‘He was a Duke of Sermetica!'

‘I know,' Khalid said calmly. ‘I ruined his life once before.'

‘Balin!' Jazmay warned, as she sensed her young crewmate was preparing to lash out. ‘You know what might happen if you misuse your Power, don't you?'

With a deep inhalation, he served Khalid the evil eye and moved to the back of the cell to calm himself.

‘So why are you still here?' Jazmay queried; Khalid had PK and could teleport at will just as she could. ‘Where are your ghostly crew?'

‘My crew are back on my observer vessel,' Khalid advised. ‘I had planned on blowing this ship up.'

Jazmay frowned as she assessed what this might mean. ‘You've lost your Powers,' she surmised.

‘Seems that way.' He shrugged off the loss, leaning back against the wall. ‘You?'

Jazmay wasn't sure; she hadn't attempted to use them.

As she headed to the locked cell door, Ringbalin's interest was sparked and he watched her closely. She checked that the door was
locked first, and then imagined it opening quietly. When she exerted her will, the door complied and slid aside.

‘Excellent!' Khalid jumped down from the bunk, whereupon Jazmay turned to confront him and the door slammed locked at her mental bidding.

‘In your dreams.' She stared him down, and as she was much taller, stronger and psychically gifted than he was in this instance, Khalid backed up a step, holding up both hands in truce.

‘If we still have Powers and Khalid does not,' Ringbalin approached Jazmay to theorise, ‘we have almost surely jumped universes.'

‘Cut off from his source of being, he should be dead.' Ringbalin nodded to agree that their understanding — that Khalid could not survive without the demons who had aided to bring him into the world — must have been wrong.

They both observed Khalid with curious expressions on their faces.

‘He can't be a complete abomination,' Ringbalin conceded. ‘There must be some human in him?'

‘It really isn't me you have to worry about,' said Khalid, in his own defence. ‘I can assure you I'm a hell of a lot more human than what's waiting for you out there.' He motioned with his head to indicate the world beyond the bars of their cell.

Jazmay ploughed into Khalid and pinned him to the wall. ‘What are they up to?'

‘I have no idea.'

Jazmay headbutted her captive and asked again.

‘They've taken a particular interest in what Kestler built for me,' Khalid mumbled, bleary-eyed, motioning to the old guy on the floor. ‘I think they plan to transform it into some sort of weapon.'

‘A cation linac particle accelerator.' Jazmay backed away and Khalid slid down the wall a ways, but managed to stay on his feet. This weapon had the ability to turn an immortal into a mortal, and would drain anyone of their psychic power.

‘They're going to amplify their weapon capability and take out the entire city at once!' Kila only had one city, Chailida.

Jazmay hoped that the captain had somehow discovered this horrendous turn of events, yet her commonsense told her he could not possibly suspect that the Orions had taken over Khalid's battle cruiser, when Khalid had never been in this universe before! Jazmay would have teleported herself to Lucian and Taren immediately, but what if they were in Chailida already?

‘Pardon my saying so.' The old man had come around and was listening intently to what was being said. ‘But a cation linac particle accelerator isn't going to do any damage to a city beyond making everyone feel a bit negative for a while.'

‘Professor Kestler.' Ringbalin went down on one knee next to the old man to see if he was all right.

‘No offence, professor,' Jazmay had studied physics herself, ‘but I have been here before, in another time line, and I know for a fact that bombarding an immortal — or anyone with psychic power — with a plasma of positive ions, will cause their advanced eight-to twelve-strand DNA to unbraid, rendering them mortal and powerless.'

‘You can travel through time?' Khalid was stunned. ‘I never tried.' He clearly regretted that now.

‘Eight-to twelve-strand DNA?' queried the professor.

Ringbalin was clearly alarmed by Jazmay's insight; although he'd been told he'd visited this universe before, time travel was not one of his Powers, so he had no memory of it as Jazmay did.

Khalid raised his eyebrows at their situation. ‘Looks like you won't have your Powers much longer either. So, if you plan on breaking out of here, best do it sooner rather than later.'

‘What's he doing in here?' Kestler asked, having been held captive by the villain for years.

‘Later, professor.' Ringbalin looked to Jazmay. ‘What are we going to do? You're the only one here strong enough to combat
them, but you can't stop them alone! Not if they already have a handheld version of the weapon you describe.' This fact was well known on AMIE. ‘They'll take your Power and then where will we be?'

‘Yes, thank you, Ringbalin,' Jazmay replied. ‘I am aware, just let me think a second.'

‘Might I suggest heading for yesterday morning?' Khalid put in, hopefully.

‘I'm not taking you back to your Power, and leaving this bloody mess behind!' Jazmay barked. ‘Besides, time travel is a solo pursuit; you cannot teleport anyone with you. Now shut your mouth, or I'll seal it up permanently.'

Khalid frowned at the suggestion, but did not answer back.

If Jazmay took them all to Kila to warn the governor of Chailida, and the Orions fired on the city, she'd be rendered useless along with everyone else. And what good would a warning do them now, when they had no time to mount a defence?
But they could shift location?

All of the Chosen who had died and assumed their immortality had the power to teleport. But what if the attack had already begun?

‘I need somewhere to take us outside of Chailida proper that might have a direct line of communication with the governor's office,' she thought out loud.

There was only one other dwelling that had been constructed on Kila outside of the city proper. It was an underground operations base for KEPA — the Kila Environmental Protection Agency. It would have been the perfect solution had Jazmay ever actually been there. The man she had become fond of during her time on Kila, Jahan, had worked for the agency and had promised to take her to the KEPA base at the Shutura Crevice, but circumstances had intervened. No psychic could teleport anywhere they hadn't been, seen a picture of, or knew someone who was there. She could teleport herself to Jahan, but he could just as well be in the target city — if she couldn't come up with a safer bet, that was a plan B.

Jazmay got frustrated a second, and then calmed herself to rethink.

Jahan had taken her to a deserted beach away from the city, but there were no communications out there.
But … he did fly me to that beach in his KEPA craft!
She knew what the inside of one of those looked like and there was a very good chance that there was one of their recon vessels close, if not inside, the Shutura Crevice.

‘Okay, I think I have somewhere safe to go,' Jazmay announced, whereupon Ringbalen gave Kestler a hand to get to his feet.

‘We should take Mythric with us …' Ringbalin suggested, ‘… give him a decent burial.'

‘He's still alive back where we came from,' Jazmay reasoned, taking Ringbalin's hand; she'd been fond of Mythric too, but she did not want to be towing a dead body around. ‘It will prove nothing but a waste of time and energy in the long run, and we have bigger things to worry about right now.'

‘What about him?' Kestler pointed to Khalid, who'd not bothered joining them to be teleported, but was sliding down the wall to take a seat on the floor.

‘Go on without me.' Khalid cracked an ironic smile. ‘I'll get what's coming to me, that seems only fair.'

‘That's exactly right.' Jazmay reached for Kestler's hand to form a circle.