Authors: S D Taylor
Erin tried to fill in the story as she understood it. “The Yir-Lak Command puts nanobots inside everyone in Transarctica. That allows them to monitor everyone’s conversations and location. Dara and Jelk were working with people that developed the thoughtlink system. With it, they were able to come up with a plan to escape using the time/space locator. They didn’t want to die at age thirty-six and they were running out of time. The plan was to bring everyone, including the children, to this time and place. Then they would continue the escape from here, using the salmon to confuse any pursuers.
“So the earthquake threw off the plan?”
“It actually caused the Yir-Lak monitoring system to shut down for the first time ever. So Dara and the rest of the conspirators decided to change the plan and try to shut down the Yir-Lak Command for good. Olunda may know more about it.”
“You are right about the basics, Erin. Dara, Jelk and I were very upset about Dara’s husband’s termination last year. All of us had survived the war ten years ago and recently we felt the Yir-Lak had grown soft. They relied on their monitoring system to provide security and tried to save money by spending less and less on troops and training. We had waited a long time for an opportunity to escape from them, but the monitoring had discouraged us. We knew our best time to try an escape was if there was some distraction like an attack from another country, or a natural disaster. It just happened that the natural disaster occurred at the same moment we were just about ready to try our escape.”
“Had the monitoring still be in place, how did you plan to escape? I thought they could trace your signal across time and space with the time/space locator sensors.”
“You are correct and that’s why we came up with the ‘salmon plan,’ as we called it. The technology the Yir-Lak has developed can track the quantum signature of any temporal anomalies. If anyone has passed through a vortex, they can be located by the system. When Peter and Gaby first arrived in Selenton, some people Dara was working with took samples of their DNA and replicated it. They then injected it into to thousands of salmon eggs about to hatch. That meant the young salmon would all register as temporal distortions. The plan was to distribute them in many locations using the time/space locator at random so that if anyone tried to follow us, they would find there were too many traces to investigate. Dara thought it would buy us enough time to escape for good.”
Erin shook her head in disbelief. “Pretty interesting plan. I have to hand it to Dara. She had me completely fooled about her motives and intentions. I hope I have a chance to see her again and get to know her better.”
Olunda went on. “The original plan was that the hover vehicles would pick us up near the hotel, we would all leave from there. Dara had spoken to Peter and Gaby while they were still on the boat and suggested they pretend to be interested in staying in Transarctica to live rather than return here with you. She wanted their assistance in the plan, but she kept everyone separate and guessing about the true nature of what was happening. But in the end, the earthquake caused the whole plan to change.”
“Any more twists to this story that I need to know?” Erin was amazed that nearly everything since she left her own time and space was some form of deception. “So if Peter and Gaby did fly the hover vehicles, where did they learn to do that?”
“Dara must have arranged for them to be trained. I don’t know who provided the training. I don’t think Jelk was involved in it.” Olunda seemed as confused by the events as Erin was.
“If Peter and Gaby did receive training, is it possible the trainers sold them out? That they sent the troops to attack us?”
“That is always a risk when you try to do something secret in a place like Transarctica. You have to reach out to people to help but you can never be completely certain about their loyalties.”
“Why did Dara believe she could trust us? After what she and Jelk put us through, I was ready to kill her. I am sure that Peter and Gaby were none too thrilled either.”
Olunda did have an answer for that question. She had talked to Jelk about these new visitors. “Dara saw how you all reacted. How you looked after each other. She said that the four of you were very supportive of each other, extremely loyal and very intense in your desire to escape and return to your time. You passed all her tests.”
“So was that final attack real? Where we barely escaped with the children and everyone else was engaged in fighting the unseen attackers? Was that real, Olunda?”
“I think so, Erin. Considering everything else, I can’t be completely sure. But I think so.”
“Well I am glad you think so. After what you have told me, I don’t know who I can trust. Whether I can even trust what I can see with my own two eyes. But the only way I am going to find out is to go back there as soon as we can load this thing up and get out of here.”
Ying crawled out from under the console and stood up. “There may be a better way. I have an idea.”
Chapter 46
The older Doug, “Pops” as his younger version had taken to calling him, opened his eyes and felt the overall body pain that results from being too close to an explosion. He glanced around and realized he was in the passenger compartment of a hover vehicle, which was the way he woke up from his original abduction a few weeks earlier. For a moment, he wondered if all the time since then was just a dream. The Yir-Lak Compound, the meeting with Erin, Peter and Gaby. The trip to Lopfa and meeting his younger version. He started to sit up but thought better of it. Rolling sideways seemed like a less painful option. There didn’t seem to be anyone on the hover vehicle and he could feel no motion. Rolling onto his side, he could see that the door was open and the hover vehicle was sitting in a field. He glanced around for any form of weapon but there were none in sight. He struggled quietly to his feet, acutely feeling the pain from the blast. He went onto the flight deck and looked out of the viewport. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.
They were indeed in a field. The one that was directly behind the Yir-Lak Command Compound. Peter, Gaby and Doug were sitting on the ground about fifty yards from the hover vehicle with their hands behind their backs. They appeared to be prisoners and Doug assumed their hands were tied. Nobody would sit like that without having to. Jelk was standing in the front of them, talking to Dara in an animated fashion, gesturing with his large metallic arm in wide arcs as if telling some epic story. Dara was holding a large stunrifle and periodically turned to look at the captives. There were some Yir-Lak soldiers rapidly approaching from the direction of the compound. They were wearing full combat gear and glanced around in all directions as if they expected an attack any second.
Doug wondered what he was watching. Was it an elaborate ruse that Dara was staging for the benefit of the defense forces, hoping that they could gain access to the compound? He remembered that he and Peter had tried a similar “bringing in a prisoner” scheme with Erin when they were trying to infiltrate the pirate camp on the island. If Dara could get them into the compound without anyone realizing she had changed sides, there may be a chance to cause a little chaos and win the day. Or it could be that Dara and Jelk turned on Peter, younger Doug and Gaby and were about ready to hand them over to the authorities for termination.
Doug couldn’t bring himself to believe that Dara and Jelk somehow orchestrated this conspiracy scenario, including their families, just so they could lure the rest of the party into this ambush. He wished he knew for sure since the past few days had convinced him to take nothing for granted. They probably thought he was dead after the explosion or too injured to participate in Dara’s plan. With a little luck, once they were inside, he could fire the hover vehicle’s pulse cannon and cause a little problem for the folks in the compound. It would sure feel better than waiting around. He was weighing his options when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Doug was still smarting from the explosion, but he turned quickly and was ready to strike whoever had touched him. At least until he saw it was Erin. He started to say “What are you doing here!” but she held up a finger to her lips and squeezed his shoulder to form a thoughtlink.
“Where is everyone?” Erin thoughts were intense and clear to Doug.
“Out there with Dara and Jelk. They are tied up and the bad guys are approaching fast. I was considering something radical, but it is hard to know what do to. I was unconscious when they hatched this current plan. Hell, I can’t even be sure this isn’t just a staged event by Dara and Jelk and they are all walking into a trap.”
“You better hold off on any actions. If everyone is still working together, anything you do could screw it up. Besides, Ying has a plan that you should hear about. Follow me.”
“Where?”
“Back home.” Erin took Doug’s arm and pulled him back through the micro vortex that Ying had created for Erin to go to the future world and then return. Going back through the vortex, they were back on the island and Rin was standing in front of them, looking as if she was seeing a ghost. “My God, Doug. I didn’t believe it until this very moment.” She nearly knocked him over as she raced into his arms and hugged him far too tightly for a man who had nearly been blown apart the day before. He winced for a moment but smiled broadly as he held her in his arms for the first time in two of her years. He kissed her the way he had dreamed about kissing her for a long time. Neither one of them said anything for several minutes. Finally he released her and said, “Hi, Erin. Ah, it’s really, really nice to see you.” He smiled broadly as he said it.
“You too, my love. It will be nice to have someone around here who calls me Erin. Even if you will get at least two people responding to that name.” She smiled in a way no one around her had seen her smile in the past two years. Her friend, lover and husband had come back from the dead. It was hard to beat that for the definition of a damn good day. She hugged him again and lay her head on his shoulder.
The younger Erin spoke up. “Ying decided we should be able to use the time/space locator to open a small vortex without having to use a hover vehicle or boat to go through it. We could just walk through it. It is targeted on the temporal signature of any organism that is in the wrong place in time and space. She pointed it at your temporal signature and I went and got you. Worked pretty well, huh? Plus it saves some of the energy since we don’t have to move the entire vehicle through the vortex.”
Doug smiled at Ying. “Great thinking. This gives us some interesting options.”
Ying stood nearby, beaming at the success of her experiment. She had concocted a variety of bizarre scenarios concerning potential problems but none of them had come to pass. She was anxious to try the vortex travel herself. But for now, Erin asked that she work the controls and stay safe. If Ying went to the future and anything went wrong they would lose the person who understood how the system worked.
“Any drawbacks? Any reason we can’t go get each person and bring them here?” The older Doug’s mind was racing as he thought about what they could do to help get everyone back now.
Erin gave him the reason. “You need to go see your girls. I am going back to get my Doug and the rest of them. Ying, fill Doug in on the plan. If I am not back in a few days, come get us once you have everything ready.” She turned and carrying two machine pistols and a backpack, went back through the vortex before Doug could object. Ying turned down the energy level and the vortex closed.
“Where is she going? We could grab some weapons and go get them right now. Tom, what about it?”
Tom said nothing and Rin gave Doug a stern look. “You aren’t going anywhere. Let the rest of them fight this war. We have you back from the dead and I am not about to let you out of my sight unless I am dead myself.”
Doug turned and looked at her, his tired, bruised body crying out in pain. He saw that she was both telling him her wishes, as well as pleading with her eyes. He knew that he had to stay there and help her recover from the shock of getting him back and then nearly losing him again. For once, Doug Cameron was able to stand down in the face of a fight. Perhaps because he knew that there was a version of him there in the future ready to lead the charge. Or perhaps he just realized that at that moment, his Erin and his daughters needed him the most.
“Ok. Let’s go see the girls. We can mount a rescue mission later. If any of them need rescuing.”
Rin and Doug walked quickly up the trail to Peter’s old shelter that had served them so well as their family home for many years. He hoped the girls would still recognize him. He should have worried more if he would recognize them. As they arrived “home” Doug approached cautiously, as he always did. The girls had been trained to be on guard for unexpected attacks. He walked into the clearing where the group had battled the pirates a few days earlier and stood facing the almost hidden door. “Anyone home?”
He saw the muzzle of an AK-47 poke out of a shooting slot in the door, followed by a shrill scream that sounded like “Daddy.” The door flung open wide and Alannah ran as fast as she could go, nearly knocking him over as he caught her and hugged her. This was an older, more mature Allanah than he remembered when Dara and Jelk had kidnapped him. In his version of reality, it had only been six weeks since he had seen her on that fateful morning he went out fishing. But in her version of time, over two years had gone by. She was much more a young woman now than the young girl he had left behind. She buried her head against his neck and cried tears of happiness. “I thought you were dead. I am so glad you came back to us.”