The Light-Field

  ‘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. ‘Besi
des, 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.

  ‘Eaten by giant lizards seems pretty harsh, Jaz?’ Ringbalin’s compassionate streak took over.

  ‘A couple of minutes ago you were ready to implode him,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Implosion does seem a rather more attractive option actually,’ Khalid butted in. ‘Why didn’t you let him finish me that way?’

  ‘Because that would have been an abuse of power!’ Jazmay spat back.

  ‘And leaving me here to be an alien feast, isn’t?’ Khalid found that funny.

  ‘He’s right, Jaz,’ Ringbalin conceded, whereupon the ex-Valourean let loose with a string of swear words to try to relieve her frustration.

  ‘You know the boss would not leave him,’ Ringbalin added, hoping to calm her a little.

  ‘All right then,’ she gritted her teeth to agree. ‘Get over here before I change my mind.’ Jazmay held out her bare hand and Khalid was quick to raise himself and take hold.

  Every cloud has a silver lining and inside Jazmay was smiling broadly, for Khalid didn’t know that she was also a shape-shifter; she needed only to make skin contact with someone to steal their entire DNA blueprint.

  ‘You won’t regret this,’ Khalid ventured to say.

  ‘Oh.’ Jazmay let the smug smile manifest openly on her face, as she held Ringbalin’s hand. ‘I know I won’t. Complete the circuit.’ She instructed Khalid to join hands with Kestler, who held Ringbalin’s hand. ‘I don’t know how this is going to come out, or even if it will work at all, so prepare for anything.’

  Unfortunately, KEPA craft could be reduced to their elementary particles and stored in a bracelet worn by the pilot when not in use — such was the advanced technology of the Chosen. Jahan had mentioned that they kept and serviced spare vehicles back at the KEPA base inside the Shutura Crevice; she just hoped that at least one of those craft was currently in its solid state.

  ‘Here goes,’ she forewarned, as she closed her eyes to focus on her memory of the interior of the recon vessel. As the light-filled sensation of teleportation swept over them all, Jazmay figured they were going somewhere and anywhere was probably better than their present circumstance.

  Praise the universe! Jazmay inwardly breathed a sigh of relief upon finding herself and her company deposited inside one of the KEPA craft. She had landed in the pilot seat, Ringbalin beside her, Khalid and Kestler in the back.

  Through the front windscreen she discerned their vessel was sitting on the surface of the water in a well-lit dock, inside a natural sub-terrain sub-bay. That was the beauty of the base at the Shutura Crevice — it had been built inside a natural hollow of a mountain and could only be accessed via an underwater cavern, beneath the surface of the lake that bordered the large mountain. No enemy would guess its existence, and even if they’d heard rumours of KEPA’s base, they’d have to scour the entire untamed planet to find it. Jazmay’s attention diverted from the view outside through the windscreen to the control panel, where she discovered this was Jahan’s actual craft — easily identifiable by the picture of the yacht he’d built himself, stuck on the dash.

  ‘He’s here!’ Jazmay turned and scrambled past Khalid and Kestler to get to the exit door — even if Chailida had been attacked, the chances were Jahan had escaped harm.

  ‘Who is here?’ Ringbalin queried, appearing distinctly uncomfortable inside the metal vehicle.

  ‘An old friend.’ Jazmay turned back, having had an afterthought. She reached back into the cockpit to grab a headset, which was in fact a translating device. Those of the Chosen who had assumed their immortality inherently understood all languages, but at this stage of his life, Jahan had yet to experience physical death, and so had not been endowed with any of his immortal talents.

  ‘But Jaz, even if this guy is an old friend, he’s not going to remember you!’ Ringbalin pointed out.

  ‘That won’t matter,’ Jazmay suppressed a fond smile, ‘he’ll be well disposed toward me anyway.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Balin sought reassurance.

  ‘Because back on AMIE, this man is my husband.’ Jazmay grinned.

  ‘Whoa.’ Ringbalin was shocked. ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘Reincarnation,’ said Jazmay. This was a concept she’d learnt about from the Chosen, and as Ringbalin had no memory of his time spent here, he was confused. ‘I’ll explain some other time. Stay here.’

  ‘With him?’ Ringbalin didn’t like the idea of being left with Khalid, with only an old man as backup.

  ‘Climb out onto the dock by all means,’ she suggested and manifested a pulse laser weapon, which she set to stun and handed to Ringbalin.

  ‘Don’t be long.’ Ringbalin accepted the weapon reluctantly.

  Jazmay looked to Khalid and the old man. ‘Do what he tells you, and don’t piss me off.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Kestler was eager to cooperate.

  ‘I’m just happy to be here,’ Khalid stated, deadpan.

  Ringbalin followed Jazmay out of the craft and onto the dock to stand guard, looking awkward. He was a healer, not a soldier, and was not comfortable letting Jazmay out of his sight — this was plain in the expression on his face.

  ‘You’ve endured much worse than this for the boss before today,’ Jazmay said in parting.

  ‘We’ve been propelled into an alien universe, how d
o you figure?’

  ‘Last time this happened … you regretted not coming,’ she enlightened him. ‘So much so that you risked your life by allowing Zeven to teleport you into the unknown to get here.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ he mumbled. ‘That seems very impulsive of me. I can’t imagine ever wanting to leave Module C.’

  ‘You can’t imagine wanting to leave Dr Portus, you mean.’ Jazmay saw right through his statement; he’d been having an affair with AMIE’s female marine botanist for some time.

  Ringbalin cracked a smile to confirm the truth of her words.

  ‘Your Ayliscia was murdered last time around, for betraying her people for a man.’

  Ringbalin was shocked to hear this.

  ‘You owe the boss so much more than you know, little man,’ she explained. ‘So find your backbone — the boss needs us now.’

  Ringbalin nodded, bemused but committed, as Jazmay turned and made her way toward the only above-water exit from the sub-terrain dock.

  Upon her approach, the exit door vanished to grant her entry. No unauthorised personnel were ever in here, thus the lack of security.

  She followed a corridor past labs, offices, a large kitchen area and bathrooms to the control room. A good distance away from the glass doors, Jazmay halted to view the young man. He was alone in the room beyond, and was the very image of her husband back on AMIE.

  His blond curls were longer and hung to his shoulders, and his skin was tanned dark from his outdoor vocation. As a member of the Kila Environmental Protection Agency, Jahan spent a good deal of time in the wild, and had a deep love of the sun and sea.

  With his back to her, Jahan stood observing a bunch of soft-light screens that rose from the control panel before him. The footage was of a war zone, which hastened Jazmay’s steps.

  ‘It has already begun!’ she exclaimed in horror as she entered.

  Jahan did an about face, tears of anger streaming down his face. As he didn’t recognise her, he pulled his weapon and began threatening Jazmay in a language she didn’t comprehend.

  Jazmay held one hand up in truce and with the other, held out the translator she’d retrieved from his craft. Her offering made him curious and he motioned for her to toss the translator to him. Jahan awkwardly maintained his aim and positioned the translator on his head one-handed. With the headset in place and turned on, he said, ‘Say something, I need to get a fix on your locution.’