Child of Time (63 page)

“You know I am capable of such an action. Would you
like me to open said channel?” Kiyan rolled his eyes at Alec.
Sometimes he could be so literal it was frustrating. The last
doubts that Luke had given Alec some emotional subroutines
evaporated.

“Yes please.” A few minutes passed before a stable
connection was established. Baric who was the commander of the
vault ship appeared in front of Kiyan.

“Ah, Kiyan how can I be of assistance?”

We have a plan that could give us the upper hand but
we need the temporal fragment to execute the plan. Kiyan hoped that
Baric would not harbor too many suspicions about his motives.

“And who might we be?” Kiyan’s hopes began to
melt.

“Theo, Kendra and myself. I was tasked with acquiring
the temporal fragment.”

“You realize how dangerous the fragment can be if
mishandled. Only an ascended can properly use it.” Baric wasn’t
convinced.

“I was there when it was handed over by the Voth. I
know how powerful it is. Besides it is stable unless an ascended
uses it.” Kiyan was about to lose hope. “I’m just doing what Kendra
told me to do.”

“Very well. She would not have given you the task
without knowing you are capable.” Baric made the arrangements for
the transfer and closed the connection. Kiyan leaned back in
relief. He had never had high hopes that he could pull off what he
intended but he had made encouraging progress.

“We should have the temporal fragment soon if all
goes well.” Kiyan directed his speech towards thin air but knew
that Alec was listening.

“Rarely does everything execute as expected. If I
might be so bold, what is your plan? I know that you want to close
the portal. How do you want to go about achieving that result?”
Alec’s hologram appeared.

“I want to seal the portal from the dark universe. If
what Kendra was saying is right then he should not be able to open
another portal. We would have to seal it at the instance when he
opened it or else the energy that Reigns siphoned off might permit
him to open another portal.” Kiyan mused on what he had just said.
“If we succeed then the whole war will never have happened.
Otherwise the hordes of mechanical drakken on the other side will
overwhelm us.”

“Such a plan has not been predicted by the Assurian
collective. If we haven’t considered it a possible outcome why do
you consider it?” Alec waited expectantly.

“I just know that I have to do this. I can’t explain
it but I know what I saw.” Kiyan let curiosity get the best of him
for an instant. “Why haven’t you tried stopping me?”

“You and Luke are prime. I can choose to disobey
either one of you but not both of you. Luke has made it plain that
he supports you in this endeavor. As such I am bound to protect you
to the best of my ability. Beyond that I believe that you are
right. The drakken universe has nearly unlimited numbers and will
only become more difficult to contain. Our options are limited. On
top of that I doubt that the drakken have considered this a
possibility.” Kiyan was a little surprised. He had not spoken with
Luke concerning the matter yet he knew that the AI had access to
his mind.

“Can you have my crew off the Avenger without raising
suspicions by the time the fragment gets here?” Kiyan was a little
sad as he looked forward to possibly the greatest battle of his
life without his friends at his side.

“Sapphire has been assigned to redesign the
environmental systems on another battle ship. I convinced them that
her improvements to our systems were quite substantial.”

“But they were! No offence but the air in the ship
feels more like a planet instead of a spacecraft.” Kiyan understood
that as an organic he would appreciate the improvement more than an
AI.

“I must admit that her success was helpful in
perpetrating the subterfuge. Jeremy, Fred and Addy will be sent to
the draconic ship for additional elemental training. Corban has
been chosen to represent the protectorate in a meeting with the
thorans. Savos as the thoran representative will also be at the
meeting. That only leaves Terra, Ray, Kronos and a couple others
that I can transport to another ship at the last moment.”

“I don’t know what awaits us but I see no other
choice.” Kiyan resigned himself to whatever fate was in his chosen
path.

“The well laid plans of mice and men. One only hopes
that we trod not a path that leads to failure.” Alec mused
aloud.

Chapter Twenty-three: Convergence

“
Theo, something is wrong, I can feel it. Time is
shifting and I can’t tell how.”
There was worry evident in
Kendra’s thoughts.

“
I would not have chosen the word wrong. Different
is a more applicable description.”
Theo‘s response did little
to alleviate Kendra’s agitation.

“
There will be a shift and I don’t know what will
cause it. I have never seen this time period in the visions.”
The vague feeling that Kendra was feeling annoyed her with its
persistence.

-------

“Greetings Kendra.” Baric addressed Kendra when she
appeared on the com channel.

“Greetings Baric. To what do we owe the pleasure of
this visit?” Kendra had not expected the commander responsible for
the vault to be so close to the front.

“I wish to see if I can be of any more help to the
plan you have been developing.” Baric looked slightly surprised by
the question Kendra had posed.

“Plan? Please enlighten me. I seem to have forgotten
about my involvement.” Baric was even more surprised by Kendra’s
ignorance.

“You requested that Kiyan acquire the temporal
fragment for you. I have just delivered it to the Avenger but
seeing that your ship is also present in the blockade I begin to
wonder why you did not have me transfer it directly to the Athena.
Aboard the Avenger it is useless but aboard your ship you can use
it.” Baric began reviewing his communications with Kiyan as he saw
the astonished expression flicker across Kendra’s face. Suspicions
that not all was as it had seemed to be began to surface.

“How is it useless with Kiyan?” Kendra asked the
question that she was thinking out loud almost unintentionally.

“He is unascended unlike you. Am I to take it that
you had no knowledge of this transaction?” Baric regretted how
easily Kendra’s son had fooled him.

“He is ascended and is fully capable of using the
fragment.” Kendra snapped her attention back to the conversation.
“Thank you for informing me of this old friend. There are things I
must investigate further.”

“I only hope I have not caused too much damage by my
carelessness.” Baric remained expressionless. “I see that the apple
has not fallen far from the tree. Be sure to give the insolent lad
a sound thrashing for me.” There was a click and the channel was
closed.

“
Theo! Kiyan is up to something.”
Kendra
didn’t have time to wait for the com channel to open and reached
out to touch Theo’s mind with her message.

“I’m not terribly surprised. He just cloaked and left
his position in the blockade. It seems Terra and a couple of his
crew members have just been transported to my ship. Have you any
idea what he is up to?” Theo must have been on the bridge to be
able to open the channel so fast.

“I’m not positive but he has the temporal fragment
and he was very interested in the dark one this morning. You might
draw several disturbing conclusions from that.” Kendra clearly
already had.

“How did he get the temporal fragment? It is supposed
to be on the vault!” Theo glanced down at the panels in front of
him.

“He tricked Baric into thinking he was acting under
my orders. Besides, you of all people should know that he has
access to your ancestor’s collective memories.” Kendra was about to
say something else when Theo interrupted her.

“The portal is stabilizing. A ship’s shields should
be able to protect an organic crew from the effects of the
radiation.” Theo tapped a few buttons before continuing. “Whoever
is doing it is doing from our side and Atlas tells me that the
effect it only temporary at best.”

“I think we both know who is doing it. Theo, we need
to get to Kiyan before it is too late.” With that the both of them
melted into energy and slipped into space. Being in space
unprotected from the discordant energy being emitted by the portal
was difficult. It took both of Kendra’s and Theo’s combined
strength to resist the repulsive energy patterns. It only took them
a moment to transverse the distance that separated them and move
towards the Avenger’s expected location.

They soon felt the shape of the ship moving against
the fabric of space. Unfortunately the shields were up. A normal
shield would have offered little in the way of impedance. The phase
shifts would have given ample opportunity to slide between. The
Assurian shields were different. They utilized temporal buffers to
blend the phase shifts together and multiple emitters to use
several phases at the same time. It was like throwing a rock
between moving railroad boxcars only with a dozen moving at
different speeds and directions at the same time that the rock
needed to pass between.

The opportunity came when the Avenger drew close
enough to the portal to have a detrimental effect on the shields
and a surprised drakken ship navigated into the invisible
battleship. Taking advantage of the split second fissure in the
shields, Kendra and Theo took their forms on the ship. Just as they
had fully became corporeal again a jolt nearly knocked them off
their feet.

“We are too late. The ship is through.” Theo
verbalized the obvious. “We are in the drakken universe.”

“We can go back through.” Kendra strode purposefully
towards the bridge door in front of them. The door slid open
revealing Kiyan in full sync with the ship. Attempts to communicate
with her were futile. His mind was closed to any telepathic
intrusions. The temporal fragment was still glowing above
Kiyan.

“Alec! Let us talk to him.” Theo directed his words
at a nearby control panel even though he knew that the AI was fully
aware of what he said no matter where he was on the ship. Instead
of the expected interface channel two sync stations formed at a
couple of the control units.

“It isn’t what I had in mind but I suppose it will
do.” Theo made the first move and was synced with the mainframe a
moment before Kendra.

“Kiyan, we need to go back now before the drakken
here detect us.” Kendra addressed Kiyan’s virtual form. He was
standing inside a semi opaque sphere that had all the ship’s sensor
information overlaid around him. The visual representations of Alec
and Luke could be seen beside him.

“Look.” A giant image appeared in front of Theo and
Kendra. In it they could see the enlarged portal tearing at space.
The other universe could be seen through it framed by the burning
fringes. Outside of the window an intense whirlpool of energy
twisted at space. The highlighted drakken ships in orderly
formations were lined up prepared to pass the portal. Detecting the
sudden shift in stability several of the formations broke off and
raced towards the portal. Just before they got to the window it
suddenly clouded and shrunk. Most of the ships were atomized by the
edges and only a fraction managed to pass through before the portal
was only big enough for a few ships at a time to pass through. The
image changed and the watchers could see thousands of ships
littering the space before the portal in orderly rows.

“We can’t go back without taking thousands of drakken
with us.” Kendra knew what Kiyan meant by showing them the images.
She wondered at how many ships had been destroyed as a side effect
of Kiyan’s crossing. The information was instantly presented by the
mainframe. A couple hundred ships had been destroyed but they were
only a drop in the ocean compared to how many were waiting. Already
the ocean of ships were reorganizing themselves to take advantage
of any future stabilizations of the portal. It was eerie watching
ten thousand ships move in unison like a school of fish. Kiyan had
moved the Avenger off to one side and thus avoided the charge and
repositioning of the fleet.

“I had no idea there were so many mechanical drakken
prepared to cross over.” Theo gazed at the landscape before him
with an astonished expression.

“There isn’t a single organic in the entire fleet!”
Kendra had the passive sensor data overlaid on her own sphere.

“It is worse even than that. I doubt that we would
find any organic beings with our longest range decloaked scans. I
didn’t see anything but these machines with my shadow walk. I had
hoped only to risk myself but you are now here.” Kiyan was silent
for a moment before continuing.” Phase two commences.” Kiyan had
hardly finished speaking before dozens of the ships broke off from
the main fleet and began moving in what looked like a search
pattern. “The great chase begins.”

“We are cloaked now but they are bound to find us.”
Theo’s words were unneeded as the Avenger was already moving at top
speed. The search pattern was soon abandoned with a faster more
thorough method. The ships that made up the outside of the fleet
began carpet bombing space sector by sector in expanding rings.

“If we go into warp with them so close they can
follow us. How did you plan for that eventuality?” Kendra directed
her query at Kiyan.

“The great chase.” Kiyan’s response reminded Kendra
of Theo a couple hundred years younger and caused her to roll her
eyes.

“He is definitely your son Theo.” This time it was
Theo rolling his eyes at Kendra’s response.

“You make it sound like it was my fault we are here
somehow. They are almost here with the attack wall.” Kendra didn't
have a chance to respond to Theo’s comment when the Avenger
decloaked and opened a warp frame. The tumultuous energies of
subspace surrounded them an instant later. The pocket of space
jolted with the shocks of the drakken ships entering warp so
close.