Allison felt like a Disney princess as she walked through the expansive gardens of the Qual’sa palace. Her hair was styled and had bands of diamonds woven through it. The white and silver dress accentuated every single one of her best features. Her normal outfits and the general level of fitness required to be a Special Forces Soldier left her looking less than feminine if her abdomen, arms or legs were showing. The dress hid all of that. She had accessorized though; She had added her translator and holo-phone. Her shoes were actual glass slippers. In another time or place she would have been floating on air with joy. Her mood was dulled by the fact she was sure they were in danger after finding the Aryna bank.
She took a deep breath. The fresh mountain air filled her lungs. Her eyes drifted to the sky like they often did when she couldn’t fly Bit at a moment’s notice. The only time she truly felt free was in that cockpit with a full tank of antimatter and the limitless possibility that the infinite black of space offered her. Aryna stood beside her and looked up.
“Where others see cold and death, you see freedom. How inspiring. Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand, I don’t care, I’m still free, you can’t take the sky from me. What an interesting thought.”
Allison looked at her.
“Sorry, just random lyrics to a song. Does anyone seem to suspect anything?”
Aryna smiled.
“Suspect what, child?”
Allison stepped away from Aryna.
“There is no need to fear, child, I seek you no harm.”
Allison pointed at her.
“What did you do with Aryna?”
Aryna smiled once again.
“There is much you do not understand, child. Please, you need sustenance after your battle with Aryni, I have ensured all of your needs will be fulfilled.”
Aryna motioned to a table that had been filled with numerous fruit and vegetable dishes. Along with a bottle of blue blood. Allison was feeling light-headed. She desperately needed food and blood. She drifted towards the table. She felt hollow inside. Is this what was in store for her Aryna? To be taken over by something?
Allison sat down and started gathering the sweetest looking fruits and poured herself a goblet of the blue blood. Aryna sat across from her and filled her plate, her choice of drink was a dark red juice. Allison tried to maintain the courtly table manners her Aryna had taught her but failed miserably as her hunger got the best of her. The thing across from her, for it was not Aryna any longer was eating very slowly as if she was learning how to do it again. Aryna smiled.
“Retaking a mortal form after so long, it is challenging to remember how to consume sustenance without choking.”
Allison didn’t say anything. She just focused on filling up on blood and sugar to power her nanites. She was already plotting her escape. Aryna laughed, it was that same musical laugh Allison was used to.
“Child, you are not a prisoner. As I said, I seek you no ill will. Your presence here is expected. I am glad my younger self had the good sense to have you tracked down. It has made things easier, and your presence here to deal with Aryni in my delay in arriving was fortuitous was it not? Your starfighter has been fueled with what you call antimatter. It awaits you in my palace’s landing bay. I was going to provide you with the variables to return you to your own time, a dangerous trip, but it would seem someone who cares about you very much has arranged for your return and is waiting for the perfect time to open the gateway, a much preferable option, if you choose to listen to me.”
Allison put her goblet down. Her golden eyes were filled with confusion as she tried to unpack what Aryna just told her. Aryna motioned to a set of stairs.
“If you wish to leave, gather your things, go down those stairs and follow the hallway, you will find your starfighter waiting for you.”
Allison shifted to get up but then she sat back down. Aryna smiled.
“There is no rush, child. Whether you leave a few minutes from now or a century from now. You will end up in the same place and at the same time. Of course, since we’ve already done this countless times before, I know when you will leave.”
She laughed musically.
“Yes, you are correct, you are in a causality loop. Such questions can be answered by your aunt. For a corporeal being she has quite the expansive intellect. I wonder if one day she will transcend that cold dead form she inhabits. Time will tell. Child, focus on the questions you should ask of me.”
Allison narrowed her eyes.
“Are you going to do this to my Aryna?”
Aryna shook her head.
“Alas, no, my existence is finite, the cost of my hubris. Her destiny is her own. I hope she finds happiness. Love, as you have found with the boy you seek to return to. After so long, I believe one of my incarnations deserves that.”
Allison sighed with relief.
“Why all of this? Just why?”
Aryna stood up.
“Walk with me, it has been too long since I have enjoyed the scents and sights of my gardens.”
Allison stood up and fell into step beside Aryna.
“You know much of my people already. You know that these bodies of meat and bone are transitory for some of us. We all have the capacity to evolve past our corporeal forms, most do not have the required temperament. An eternity ago, I was the first. My life was not easy. I walked these paths in my youth, played with my sister Aryni and our nargle Raghar. Our mother was on the verge of being the first to transition to a higher plane, she knew her time was reaching its end one way or another, she named me as Queen. Aryni was furious. She ripped our mother to pieces. She tried to do the same to me. I won the battle.”
Aryna stopped and cupped a beautiful purple and pink flower in her hand, she smelled the air above it.
“I did not have the heart to kill her, she was my twin sister. Time twisted her further into the monster she has become, but yet she was enlightened enough to transition to the higher plane. We did so at exactly the same instant. Before I gave up my physical form, I made preparations, I had no heir, I did not want to chance another Aryni, so I duplicated my childhood self and Raghar to guard her. My first duplicate was released, and I spent time guiding her as a mother might, then I moved on to see what the next world was like.”
She stood up.
“Aryni had only gotten more cruel, and more dangerous, I was forced to fight her again. As time passed, more Qual’sa evolved into energy beings and I had assistance. Eventually we were able to lock her away. When we turned our eyes back to our mortal descendants what we found disgusted us. Aryni had turned noble house against noble house. War had come. Brother was slaying brother. We enforced peace. My duplicate was dead. We realized that as beings of energy we were capable of awful things, so we made a pact, none will interfere with the mortal world, unless they take a corporeal form. Hence, for generations I have returned to my duplicates as my old form died of old age. I have been able to guide the Qual’sa to a peaceful existence. All was good. Then she escaped recently.”
Aryna stood at a lookout and looked over the valley below where Qual’sa went about their daily business.
“When she found we had bound her in the same way we had bound ourselves she was furious. Her first act was to take over one of my shells and attack my former shell. I was caught unaware. She was rather vicious, and it took me too long to reconstitute, she was also interfering with my attempts to return to the corporeal realm with a trap. Her encounter with you distracted her and you killing her corporeal form gave me the window I needed to escape her trap. Had she succeeded here in killing this shell and destroying my duplicates it would have left her free to do whatever she wanted to do in the corporeal world without assistance.”
She smiled.
“I would say providence brought you here, but I sense the hand of a much more powerful being then myself at work. A being that makes me seem insignificant. Someone who placed a set of dominoes as you’d call them then set them in motion at the dawn of time to bring you here, to this time and place. Now, the war will begin in earnest once again, brother will slay brother, and I will have to do terrible things. Your part in these events is at an end.”
She looked at Allison.
“No child, I do not see it as cruel. My shells exist in a dreamless sleep. I do not let them wander about as a matter of course. The death of my shell initiates the release of the next. Which is what happened when you slew Ayrni the first time. The death of the shell released another, and she is an opportunist and possessed it. The death of my shell released this one and it took me decades to take it over. She should not have had to live in such fear and confusion, that she got to feel love through your memories and her first kiss, is a kindness I will not soon forget.”
Allison crossed her arms.
“If you are all so powerful, why don’t you just end her, or purge her from her body.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Aryna spread her fingers out and leaned down on the ornate marble railing.
“Because of our pact we are unable to affect the corporeal realm. So long as she has a shell, they are powerless to stop her. That will be my task. But in your time, with this world destroyed, there are no shells left. So, she is no longer a threat to you. Do not fear. With your causality loop concluded, you have done your part to defeat her.”
Allison wanted to ask for some food for Oozie, seeds, anything to give Aryna part of her home back. Aryna smiled.
“I am glad she has a friend… a sister like you. I wish Aryni had been more like you, child. And of course, you can have whatever your starfighter can carry. I will have your weapons removed and replaced with everything you require. Do not worry, I will ensure they are disposed of so you leave no trace. Might I suggest you spend some time here? There is no danger now that Aryni has left the planet and I am here. You are immortal, you need to learn to stop rushing, child.”
Aryna laughed musically.
“Yes, of course, how wise your human music is: If we don’t stop rushing, we’ll never get there. Child, you should take that message to heart. You have a gift, other living things only have the briefest of moments in this corporeal realm, you have forever. The universe has put you in this place and this time, and as I explained, whether you leave now, or in a millennia you will return to your old life after only a few hours have passed there. Use this gift to calm your heart and clear your mind. I warn you, the moment you and your belongings are in your craft, and you leave our atmosphere, the gate will open. Accept that while there is freedom out in the void, you have the freedom of limitless time here and now, you will never have this opportunity again. I apologize but I do not have limitless time, and I must attend to a great many things that have been far too long delayed. Go where you will, do what you wish. Duchess of the Great Noble House of Wanjala. You are recognized as royalty here and by my incorporeal brethren.”
Aryna left Allison alone looking down over the city below.
*****
Allison had spent months on the idyllic Qual’sa home world. She had taken in all of the many sights that Aryna had bragged about but had never seen. She had been wooed by many a handsome man, though her heart was truly with Tyler in a far-off future she would need to return to, the attention and lavish gifts had been nice. Slowly she had warmed up to the true Queen Aryna. The woman was busy preparing for war with Aryni, but she still found time to spend with Allison. She taught Allison a lot about ruling a planet, and about running an army. The time they spent together allowed her to see hints of her Aryna. They had the same smile, the same mannerisms. The same infinite patience. The same insight into the hearts of her fellow sentients, even without her telepathy.
She was never one for dresses. She loved how beautiful some of them looked. Her dislike came from the fact that she always assumed she’d look terrible in them. The true gift that Queen Aryna gave her was one of self-image. Aryna had furnished her with everything she could have wanted while she stayed with her. However, the only clothing she was provided with were dresses. Each was unique and beautiful. Each made her feel like a Disney princess. Day by day as she walked the palace halls and among the Qual’sa in the cities she felt more and more like she really was descended from royalty. By the end of her time with the Qual’sa she felt beautiful, both inside and out. Not a single Qual’sa had questioned her right to be called Duchess. Most importantly she learned to slow down and enjoy life. No one ever rushed on Qual’sa. If it did not happen today, it could happen tomorrow, so why not sit and enjoy the opera? She loved it here; She felt at home and she felt welcomed. It was a warm summer night when she realized in a bout of maturity that her time here was drawing to a close, this was not her life, this was a dream that would need to evaporate with the dawn of a new day, a new day one hundred thousand years in the future.
The two moons of Qual’sa rose above the horizon as night fell over the palace and the quiet valley below. Glowing insects flittered about the expansive gardens and night flowers bloomed. One by one the globes of light that floated above the garden flickered to life. Raghar sat down beside her. Allison looked at the fully grown nargle.
“Sorry, I accused you of being useless. I didn’t understand.”
The nargle licked her hand when she reached down, then he rubbed himself against it. She laughed.
“Oh, and now I’m to give you a bath as reparations then? Have my scritches been insufficient?”
Queen Aryna appeared from the shadows of one of the paths. She smiled at the pair.
“If I were bereft of my abilities, and deaf to all but what I see, the affection nargles show you would tell me you are the best of us. They sense good souls and are drawn to them.”
Allison was kneeling by this time and giving Raghar all the pets he would take.
“I wish they had survived. I think Oozie is the last of her kind.”
Aryna nodded and her face saddened.
“How lucky that you found each other. Raghar has been my companion for countless incarnations. I could not imagine being without him. It must pain you greatly to be away from Oozie.”
Allison nodded her smile disappearing.
“I need to go home. I love it here, but this is not my life.”
Aryna smiled.
“Child, I will miss you. I have often wondered what it would be like to have a daughter that wasn’t just a reproduction of me. I would like to think I have experienced that now. One day I will raise the Aryna you know, I will make sure to pass on the lessons you have taught this old soul. I fear you have bound yourself to me in some fashion.”
Allison nodded, she kept running her hands through Raghar’s fur.
“I know. It all makes sense now. When we touched each other for the first time it was like we’d known each other for our whole lives. Why the ancients gave her a vision of me… Why they told her to grant me lands and title. She has your memories, but they are too much for her. She has the memories of your entire race. They overwhelm her sometimes and she cries. She has so much pain and death in her that aren’t her own. I don’t know how to help her.”
Aryna knelt down and placed her hand on Allison’s.
“Child, you are there for her when she needs you and that is enough. It is more than I have ever had. Such love is precious. Cherish it. I will cherish our time together and I will weep when the end comes because I will not see you again after you leave here. I have lived so very long and it has been an endless, cold existence. I now know what it feels like to love. It is a gift beyond comprehension.”
Allison blushed.
“I’m sure you’ve known better people.”
Aryna stood up and motioned to the palace.
“The royal guard will give their lives for me without question, it is their sworn duty. When you tried to take my shell from here, it was not a sense of duty that drove you, it was love. You risked your life to protect my shell, for love. My life has been duty I did not understand love. Now I do. Come child, Raghar has had enough attention. Let us share one last meal before you take your rest and, on the morrow, you may return to your time.”
Allison smiled at Raghar giving him one last rough pet before standing up. She straightened out her dress and followed Queen Aryna to her personal dining room.
Queen Aryna had told no lies when she told Allison she would fill the fighter with as much as she could. Her starfighter was weighed down with more than she thought it could carry. Her rear seat was filled with bundles of dresses stacked up to the canopy, stuffed between the seat and the fighter sidewalls and rear wall. Under her front seat. She had no idea how she’d explain it all. She expected it was Eyre waiting for her on the other end, she could help her. She had no idea how her half-sister had managed to find her lost a hundred thousand years in the past, but she assumed it was some black Aurelius tech. She had said all her goodbyes and had been cleared for launch.
She already missed the idyllic life of Qual’sa but when she looked up at the sky she realized she’d also missed flying. She breached atmosphere and set a lazy course away from the gravity well. She didn’t want to be going too fast when she exited the other side of this mysterious gateway Queen Aryna had hinted at.
*****
Maria knew it wouldn’t take long for the three beacons to align. There were a lot of unknowns with the Project Stargate technology, but she did understand quite a lot of the temporal physics or at least thought she did. There was a temporal wake. Ripples caused by time travel. She had designed the beacons around those ripples. When the ripples were quiet that was when she could use the targeted temporal wormhole. She watched the three beacons aligning on the targeting display. She smiled. She received the call she had been expecting. She swept Eyre to the side so she could still work. The new beacons would require a lot of manual code to be entered on the fly as she opened the gateway.
“Aunt Maria, you’re sick? That’s a new one. What the hell is going on with Allison? I am getting the runaround from the embassy and your staff, finally Monica blurted out you were sick.”
Maria leaned down and typed in several more characters.
“I am sick… of corporate whining. I am sick… of my time not being my own. Should I go on?”
Eyre frowned.
“Are you going to tell me what is going on with Allison and where the hell you are? You’re actually causing a dip in the stock market. You can’t just vanish for three hours.”
Maria kept typing.
“Now I see it. Your mother said that you were the most tightly wound person she had ever known. I will be back soon.”
Eyre narrowed her eyes.
“Would you stop typing on that loud keyboard and explain what is going on?”
“Sorry, Eyre, I cannot. I need to get eighty lines of code in, in about a hundred and twenty seconds. To expedite this, I am on Pluto Station, on deck one working on the Allison issue.”
Eyre’s eyes went wide, she stood up and leaned on her desk so she could get closer to the holo-recorder.
“What did mother put you to this time with that accursed tablet she left you?”
Maria did not look at Eyre she kept her eyes focused on the screen she was working on.
“This was completely Allison’s doing. She convinced the embassy to cover for her. Shut down her AI. Made an unscheduled FTL jump to the anomaly left by her mega-antimatter bomb then made a wormhole to parts unknown. That wormhole was unstable. I am at Pluto station on deck one. That should explain the situation. Now I would really like to get your sister back in one piece without letting her disrupt you know what so if you would kindly let me work, I will let you know when she is safe. Because I do not know about you, but knowing where she is and her penchant for big explosions and the fact she is a hormonal teenage girl has me really worried.”
Eyre closed her fists.
“Why would she create an anomaly, in an anomaly?”
Maria ran her finger along her screen to check a piece of code.
“Eyre, if I understood the minds of teenage girls, I could have written a book and been just as wealthy as I am right now. My theory is that she was trying to conceal the wormhole from the gravity wave detectors. Now, I love you, go away.”
Maria swept Eyre’s image off of her AR HUD and focused on aligning the gateway. The deck started to shake as the durasteel shield covering the gateway retracted. The shaking increased. It would be felt throughout the whole station before this was done. She received yet another call.
“Hello Admiral. Everything is fine. Stand down from alert. It will be over very soon.”
Maria vented the atmosphere in the gateway chamber, then opened the massive door behind the gateway. Allison was in a starfighter she needed to go outwards, not in. The gate was starting to spin. Arcs of white lightning forced out both into the gateway chamber and out into space. The gate’s inner ring hit a hundred thousand RPM’s. As it accelerated the whole station began to shake then with a flash of silver the temporal wormhole formed. Maria remembered when Enid had referred to it as a time hole. Maria had nixed the name immediately because it sounded offensive. There were more flashes of lightning than a crack as Allison’s transit left a temporal wake behind her. It slammed into the temporal shield of the gate’s control room and dissipated. Maria shut the gate down and sealed the chamber. She opened a comm channel to the Admiral in charge of the station.
“There is a disabled craft just outside deck one, send search and rescue to tow it in. Tell me what bay they are heading too please.”
Maria slid down one of the ladders leading to the generator room. She started to shut them down and vent the antimatter back into the main storage array. Her next stop was a very long talk with her wayward niece.