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Flight of the Oracle

Cover for the book 'Flight of the Oracle' by K. R. Dalley.  A blocky spaceship fleeing an explosion through a field of stars.

Can the oracle escape when an Eldridge God attacks her empire? Only the guardsman who loves her can help her survive.

 

No one has ever challenged Haka. Never in her life. Until she meets the one man who both infuriates her and makes her endless immortal existence worth living again.

 

New chapters are posted weekly.

 

CHAPTER 1

This Must Be The End

“Haka!”  The last soldier alive of all those who had been assigned to her detail screamed to bring his Mistress out of her shock.  “Damnit!”  His shout reverberated down the corridor as the fortified fortress shuddered around them.  Part of Haka’s mind was somewhat aware of it as the stench of death, blood, and the unique piquant of divine wrath filtered through her perceptions.

Somewhere out there, outside of the shield, her older sister Angel had died erecting, Chukwu himself hurled the full fury of his wrath upon the final bastion of the Alluran.  Chukwu was the being that was believed by most sentient beings to actually be the one true God.  Somehow, he had turned the humans against Haka and her kin. 

For twenty-five thousand years, the Alluran race had slowly rebuilt their civilization after the last time Chukwu had tried to eliminate this perceived threat to his supremacy.  Half-brothers!  She mentally snorted while her body was still dazed.  It might have been funny if it hadn’t been so tragic.  Mother was captured and trapped in the Eye of Eidon, Angel was dead.  The Alluran Imperium had fallen.  Now was the time of Man. 

Tired!  Haka was so tired.  But the soldier wouldn’t let her rest.  She was three thousand years old, weary despite her appearance of physical youth.  He was all of thirty-five. 

 

Very thirty-five.  Grabbing her roughly by the collar Marcus swung his Lady Liege round and slammed her bodily up against the partially slagged metal of the base wall.  With an almost surreal detachment, Haka watched one beefy hand pull back atop a powerful and well-formed arm. 

“Snap out of it!”  Spittle and some small amount of blood from a trickling wound on Marcus’s lip splattered across Haka’s face as Marcus screamed one last time before slapping her face.  The force of the blow snapped her head around to the side.  It was stunning.  And it did the trick.  Blinking, Haka finally shook off the malaise that had gripped her as she felt first her mother, then her older sister blink out of the universe.

“Thank…. Thank you!”  She stuttered.  Haka hadn’t stuttered for a very long time.

“Focus Oracle!”  Damn that psychic link!  Haka had never much cared for the penchant her kind had for linking so effortlessly with any old male who happened to be her soul mate.  More than once she had wondered at how this young thing (young compared to her) could possibly be her soul mate.  But that was why she had lived so long.  The perfect mate intended for her by fate wasn’t born for over three thousand years after her.  It was a pity that she would be gone soon, and he would be dead.

“That’s not going to happen!”  The guard shouted over his shoulder as he pulled her along behind her.  “With Angel gone the Allura will jump to you as soon as Chukwu executes your mother…,” He grunted as the Oracle stumbled and he had to catch her and keep the weary woman from falling.  How could such a being of Divinity and Grace be meant for him?  The newly formed link between their panicked minds frantically sought to secure its proper place.

The Allura was the indestructible weapon of the Alluran.  So long as one woman from that goddess-like species still lived, the Allura would be reincarnated. 

 

“But it will kill me!”  His mistress panted.  “I never had my crystal heart removed.  If I become host now I won’t be able to stop the reincarnation cycle.”  Marcus knew what that meant. 

The Allura parasite…?  Spirit…?  Whatever it was, didn’t want to play second fiddle in a full-grown body with its own established consciousness.  It preferred to be reborn in an infant body that it could mature to whatever stage of development suited it.  Haka would be consumed in the fire of its rebirth unless he could interrupt the transmission from her mother by sending her across the divine divide.

“I’m sending you to the other side.”  Haka faltered in her step at the news.  That wasn’t surprising to Marcus. 

“How?” While the process of crossing over between the matter and antimatter halves of the universe was not known to most sentient species, the Alluran had invented the most stable way through.  Stable for mortals that is; for Alluran there were sometimes unforeseen consequences.  There were other ways as well, but there was no guarantee that she would arrive in the time or place where she intended.

“I was aiming for the Chronos Vault” Marcus explained.  “If we can make it to the entrance in time…” Yet even as he spoke both knew that it was too late.  The planet was crumbling around them.  The individuals inside this base were the only ones still alive out of this entire sector of space.  Chukwu’s wrath had no bounds or morality.

“The dark energy reactor just blew.” Massive explosions rocked the already unstable surroundings just moments after Oracle saw it happen. “We’ve lost the interdimensional bridge.” Oracle closed her eyes and braced for the backlash of psionic energy that had been released and was about to run through her unshielded mind.

“Haka…” Marcus just couldn’t give up on her.  “I’m going to get you out of here.”  Shaking her head with her eyes closed she just wanted to let herself go, give up and accept the end of her entire species.

“If the dark matter containment for the tangible reactor fails the matter-antimatter reaction will obliterate everything within a sector.”  It had been so long since someone had called her by her given name and not by her title that Haka had forgotten what it was like to be a person and not a minor deity.  “The shockwave will blow through the next three levels of existence and tear at least one veil.”  Defeat coursed through her veins and begged her to succumb. 

“We can still save you.  The emergency transport...quickly…this way!”  Without waiting for her reply, Marcus was dragging Haka off in another direction while the universe burned down around her.  Everything Haka had ever known in her life was ending.  Even if they did survive, how could she go on?

“You don’t understand…”  Haka fought loose from his grip.  “If we transport directly to the other side, the explosion will be able to flow through our temporal wake and breakthrough after us.  We would cause a catastrophic failure of the primary veil.”  Not intending to give up so easily, the guard grabbed the beautiful woman’s hand once again.  “Everything would end.  Both halves of existence would die when the matter and antimatter universes collide.”

“Then we’ll transport to one of the alternate realities on this side.” Oracle smiled at the thought. 

“Mmmm…meet another you?”  She teased despite the morbid circumstances.  She tried sounding sexy, something she’d never mastered in over three-thousand years of life.  But a little joke amid the soot and ashes was her only saving grace right now.  “Breaking the ultimate taboo and travel through alternate possible realities; or sudden and painful death?”  The sentence came out broken as the woman ran through the smoke and destruction.  One of the routes her escort had chosen ended at a caved-in wall where molten hot rock oozed through the breach.

“Will he be able to follow us?”  Business as always, Marcus would not be distracted by levity as he backpedaled quickly to take another possible route. 

“There’s no historical evidence that he has an interest in the alternates.  But the only way to keep him from immediately following us is if we leave the antimatter half of existence.  He can go anywhere on this side he wants.  But Chukwu will have to return to Eiden and start out from the center for the other side.”  Haka snorted derisively. 

 

“Some God!  He can’t even transport himself between the two halves of reality.”

“However…”  Her tired voice continued as the woman rested briefly against a wall. “…No Alluran has ever left the two causal timelines that border the primary veil.  It’s the biggest taboo.”  Smoke stung her eyes and Haka hacked and coughed convulsively for a moment before continuing.  “I don’t even know if there are Alluran in the alternate realities.  Mother would know, but she’s the Allura.  She’s the one who fixes the breaches caused by tampering with the timelines and the fabric of reality.”

By the time the battered woman had finished the statement, they had reached the emergency transport room.  Heat damage had disabled the locking plate and Marcus was already pulling the maintenance panel apart to work the override.

“What aren’t you telling me Haka?”  The voice was tired and hard.  For the first time since the siege had begun, her guardsman was letting the frayed bits of his sanity show through with the roughened edge in his voice.

“The only place that he couldn’t follow us to at all is the Chronos Vault.  It is a place outside of space and time.  Chukwu can’t exist there.  He can’t even conceive of the place.  It’s a remnant from a prior universe.  A good idea of yours’ to go there.”  Sighing in frustration, Haka continued. “But we still have the problem of the blast following us.”

Shoulder deep in the mechanics of the wall access panel Marcus cursed, and then grunted in triumph.  With a click and a hiss the door unlocked.  Extricating himself from the innards of the base the guard joined Haka as she tugged on the manual lever to open the heavy blast-proof door. 

CHAPTER 2

The Cost Was High

“What about a temporal jump?  We could do a backward jump into the Chronos Vault.  By sacrificing some of our own personal timelines it would be possible to briefly displace ourselves into an alternate reality and then jump from there.”  With a great heave, the door inched aside.  First Haka and then Marcus squeezed through the opening sideways rather than trying to fight the warped door frame.

“I can do that!”  The exhilaration that they had possibly found a way to safety caused the exclamation to come out as a shout.  The capsule for emergency transport was small.  Designed to be large enough for four people and a pilot, they fit without difficulty.  There wasn’t time to program the coordinates.  It wouldn’t have worked even if there had been time.  Programming required two separate jumps. 

For their plan to work, Haka would have to catapult them backward in time and then ricochet off of an interdimensional barrier completely out of the known universe and into a pocket universe created from a portion of a previous existence.  But she wasn’t going to just be moving them back in time.  This single jump would be powered with a portion of her timeline, her personal existence.  She had one shot at this.  And if she screwed it up then she would have never existed.

Taking the pilot’s position Haka shucked off the protective jacket she’d been wearing.  Beneath was the skintight bodysuit characteristic of high-level telepaths, empaths, and the psionically gifted.  It was a garment designed from a fabric meant to interfere with stray thoughts and focus their powers.  All it did was accentuate the fact that she was burned, exhausted, and disheveled; but she was surviving.  The semi-sentient micro veil-ship sensed her presence. 

As Haka tuned her mind to the same frequency as the organic computer which lived within their lifeboat, the various connection points along her suit began to glow.  A blue-white light suffused the cabin and telepathic umbilical snaked out from the navigation console before her.  Quickly, too quickly for comfort, the cords shot into her open channels, orifices, along Haka’s nervous system. 

Ship and pilot were linked now.  Two bodies one mind.  Being a ship was one of the hardest things a person could ever do.  It was easy to lose one’s self and become overwhelmed in the emotions and sensations of a living ship.  There was all of Space and time flowing around her, and Haka could fly.  The most perfect form of flight; immersed in everything.  Sure, there was a crazy tyrannical brother super-deity after her.  But she could run, skipping over the surface of time forever. Okay.  Not forever.  But far enough for it to count.

An unpleasant sound kept annoying her and interrupting her concentration as she plotted out all the fantastical things she could do.  It was insistent.  Perpetual.  Suddenly memory and reality came crashing back into Haka’s senses.  The annoying sound was Marcus calling her name, urging her to go.  Forcing her to remember what was happening around her and what she needed to do to survive.

The flight was brief, instantaneous.  Most of the exhilaration was subdued because of the brevity of their travel.  Then Marcus was pulling her out of the pilot’s position. Yanking organic wires out of her flesh viciously when they would come and splitting them with an electromagnetic knife when necessary.

Moving was terrible.  Every movement burned; and her muscles screamed in agony.  Fire raced through neurons. 

 

“Sabotaged!” Sounds came out in a weak croak.  “Made it?”  The Oracle had no idea if she had made it to her destination.

“No.” Her friend grunted as he carried her limp body through the open hatch and into a nightmare.  Fires burned insolently on fetid lakes.  At first, Haka thought that she had sustained a head injury then realized that the red, desolate, landscape really was red. 

 

Hot blasts of air caught her in the throat.  Had they landed on the surface of the burning planet they were trying to escape?  “I’m not sure where we are.  But there is a door here.  I think it’s an entrance to the Vault.”

“What makes you think….?”  Marcus turned around so that she could see over his shoulder the massive door he was carrying her toward, it stretched tall and wide enough to accommodate an Ark class battlecruiser, one of the largest ships of the original Alluran fleet.  “Oh!  You’re right!”  Markings on the door were of the same ancient text that marked all the entrances to the Chronos Vault.  If she’d been able to read it, it would have told her the door number and the location of the entrance.

Marcus carried the limp figure in his arms carefully.  The effects of the journey hadn’t stopped yet.  Years seemed to melt off her body as the minutes went by.  By the time he reached the door with his cargo, she had gone from full-grown woman to teen. 

A scanning device flew out of the door and zipped around them.  “Authorized DNA recognized.”  At the foot of the giant door, a smaller people-sized door opened for them.  It slammed shut as soon as they were through.  Marcus kept walking with his load getting lighter and lighter ever so imperceptibly. 

The corridor was huge and angled down into the core of the planet.  As he walked, he realized that he was traveling faster than could be accounted for by his movements past smooth bright walls lit by some indeterminate source.  Countless doors opened for their passage and clanged shut after the pair had passed through.  Finally, they reached the core.  The Chronos Vault. 

“Welcome back to the Chronos Vault authorized DNA carrier!”  The artificial intelligence which lived within the Chronos Vault greeted. 

“Haka,” Nudging his living load Marcus tried to stir her to speak.  “What does that mean; authorized DNA carrier?”  She only moaned, and Marcus realized that Haka’s already slight frame had become even slimmer, shorter, and lighter in the timeless interval it had taken to reach the core from the exterior door.

Swinging Haka from his shoulder, Marcus carefully lowered her body to the floor. 

“Haka?”  Gently he cupped her face, feeling her pulse, the physical and metaphysical ones.  The mature and beautiful woman he had fallen in love with had physically regressed.  She seemed to be about fourteen now.  “Oh, darling what did you do?”  His woman was now a child…however, that had happened. 

Stirring slowly Haka’s groan of protest at waking was a mark of normalcy in an otherwise very unnatural situation.  “Just wait for it.”  The young girl smirked before she opened her eyes.  It was then that Marcus realized his own hands had lost some of their definition.  Less, wrinkled, less gnarled; even old scars had begun healing.

“If you didn’t want to be with me you could have just told me.” His laugh was more sob-inspired than humor-filled.  “You didn’t have to go and make yourself too young to date.”  A thin giggle warmed his heart.  If she could still laugh, then she must not have been that far gone.

“We’ll be the same age when the transformation is complete.” When she finally opened her eyes to look at him, they blinked up out of a child’s face that the universe hadn’t seen for over three thousand years.  “It was necessary.  The power I possess on my own wasn’t enough to accomplish what we needed with the unit sabotaged.” Tears leaked out of her eyes.  “Angel could have done it.  But I just didn’t have the strength on my own.  Forgive me for borrowing some of yours.”

“Of course, I forgive you.” When Marcus’ voice broke, he realized he was now a teenager.  “Haka, I would have given you all of my power if it would have protected you from this.”  The girl smiled sleepily at her rescuer. 

“It wouldn’t have been enough.  All your life wouldn’t have been enough.  But my life, my life has been so long…”  The two youths were mesmerized by each other as the transformation making them younger continued.  “I wanted to give you some of what I have had.  When the transformation is complete your new life will last just as long as mine.”

Something about her voice, unfamiliar as it was made him wonder if there was something wrong. 

 

“What is the catch?”

“So, perceptive.” Her child’s voice soothed.  “It’s going to take a very long time for the transformation to be complete.” 

“How long?” The girl bit her lip tentatively at her lover’s question.

“Long enough that you might not still love me by the time we’re old enough to date again.” Realizing that Haka’s regression had finally ceased, Marcus hesitantly offered her a hand up.  Gratefully the girl took it.  The hair which had been a pale blue-white before her regression was now mostly a fine downy blonde.  Only an inch and a half swath of the familiar color remained streaked down the side of her face. 

This was the face that Marcus had fallen in love with as a child, the face that had stared out at him from his primary school history books.  The first time Marcus had seen this young girl’s face was a picture of her with her mother and sister.  All three had the same streak in their hair, a symbol of their true nature before the evolution of their abilities had converted their humanity into something else.

The first stirrings of longing had taken root at that age.  His course had been set.  A schoolboy crush had led the young Marcus on a twenty-five-year journey of discovery through the Alluran armed forces hierarchy that landed him on the personal guard roster of the girl he’d fallen in love with all those years ago.  A girl who had been a woman long before Marcus was ever born.

CHAPTER 3

The Chronos Vault

Their difference in age had been a glaring handicap to their relationship from the start.  And no, he hadn’t tried to become her guard with the intention of having a romantic relationship with the Oracle.  That had been incidental.  How was Marcus supposed to know that they were soul mates?

Both standing, at last, the pretty girl took hold of Marcus’s arm to steady herself, and Marcus felt an uncharacteristic blush heat his face. 

 

“How old am I?”  His much higher-pitched voice echoed strangely in this unfamiliar place.

“About seven…but you should go down to five.”  Haka’s bright blue eyes danced merrily.  That and her blonde hair were evidence of her returned humanity. 

“Oh.  I should, should I?”  The giggle which sprang forth from her lips at his reaction seemed to perfectly match her perfect rosy cheeks and almost ringlet curls.

“Well, I’ve never rewritten the base code of the universe before.”  Dusting some of the grime from a hand, Haka pointed to a door against the far wall of the huge chamber they were now in.  Despite the strangeness of the place, Marcus trustingly followed this girl he now felt he barely knew.

“What is this place?”  The boy gestured around the giant cavern with walls that may have been metal but could have been anything.  “I don’t know much about the Chronos Vault.”  Peering at every corner avidly Marcus found it difficult to undo his years of military training even as a child.  The man still lived within the child’s body, just as the ancient sage and Oracle still lived within the young girl with him.

“I’ve never really known what it is.”  Waiting patiently for the hissing of the door to open, Haka waved expansively with the free arm.  “A relic of times long past; before the time of Chukwu and the Watcher.”  Her living crutch paused mid-stride and so the girl had to pause and wait with him.

“There was nothing before the time of Chukwu.”  Marcus blurted out, feeling as if he truly were the inexperienced youth he appeared to be just then.

“Oh, Love.”  Patting the arm she clutched sympathetically, Haka urged her companion on.  “There was the Chronos Vault before there was space and before there was time.  But …” Haka let the sentence hang for dramatic effect as yet another person-sized hatch within a giant spaceship sized door opened before them revealing a huge complex within.  A central, hollow ring stretched miles around with a walkway ringing it. 

High above there was another ring, and another ring stretching up higher than either child could see.  Enormous doors lined the wide, railed walkways.  Beside them, sitting before the hangar-sized door they were near was the Ark class battle cruiser Haka had been expecting.

“If you have questions, this is the place we can get answers.”  Haka finished quietly.  With satisfaction, the girl watched the awe overcome Marcus.

“Since when have the Alluran had battleships?”  He looked up and down into infinity.

 

“From before time began this fortress has stood here outside of space and time.  The ships are Ark class battlecruisers.”  Marcus glanced back at Haka as he heard the reverence in her voice. 

 

“They are capable of temporal and trans-dimensional flight.  Can annihilate more than fifty percent of a physical plane with one firing of the main weapons battery; sustain a crew of five hundred and a passenger count of two million souls in stasis.  Minimum crew complement of fifty required for flight…or one Allura.”  Her breath came in sharp exhalations and the wistful longing flooded Haka’s pale and freckled face. 

 

“They’re beautiful.  Other than how to get here, this is the only thing I have ever known about the Chronos vault…there are thousands of fully functional Arks…and I have no idea what they are for.”

Releasing his grip on Haka, Marcus walked unsteadily toward the rail along the edge that didn’t seem anywhere near sturdy enough to prevent a tragic end.  Getting a better look both up and down, he could see that there were doors and ships for as far as he could see.  Not every door had a ship, only about one in four. 

 

Whether the same setup was on the far side of the facility, he couldn’t tell.  A bright beam of blue-white light crackled up and down the empty space obscuring his view.  It seemed to be the same energy that fueled the miraculous feats which the Alluran were worshipped as Goddesses for.

“Are you sure that Chukwu doesn’t know about this place?” Marcus questioned quietly.  “Because I think I know why he feels so threatened by Allura now.”  It was so typical of her kind though. 

 

Haka, like every Alluran, saw only the beauty and the good.  Arks.  A safe haven for people when destruction was upon them.  He, a human, saw the threat and danger in such powerful weapons that could be wielded by one person alone.

“I don’t understand.”  Biting her lip in confusion, Haka was every bit the child she now appeared to be.

“You are the Oracle!  If you choose, when you touch a thing you can know its whole history; past, present, and future.”  Still, the girl stared at him as if she had no idea what he was getting at.  “Why are there so many ships designed to be piloted by an Allura if there had always only been one?”  Slowly confusion gave way to understanding. 

 

Marcus, like her father, had always referred to the Allura, the life force which bonded with only one woman in the Alluran species at a time, like a parasite.  It could only exist in a host.  If there were no Alluran, then the life force would create them.  That was how powerful it was.  Even if her species died out, they would be resurrected.

“But there has only ever been one…jumping from mother to daughter, sister to aunt…cousin to cousin.  In all the history of this universe, there was only ever one.”  It was clear that in all her years, with all her wisdom, Haka had never fully thought through the simple questions that should have plagued her.  That was a clear sign of memory tampering and psychic conditioning.

“How many Allura did there used to be?  And who killed them all if they died before time began?”  Looking around alertly, the boy drew closer to the girl.  “Are we safe here?”

“Yes!”  Haka emphatically assured him with crossed arms.  “This is the one place in all the universes which has been or ever will be that we could be safe.  Everything, everything outside could end for good, and we would still be safe in here.” 

 

She spoke the words from memory.  Centuries ago, it had been her in here asking if it were safe.  Her mother’s voice echoed from the walls in its familiar subdued velvet tones. 

It was an incident she didn’t remember until her experience required that she remember it.  But she remembered all the other times those words had been spoken.  She remembered her grandfather telling her mother and before her, her grandmother the exact same things when they were children.  Genetic memories passed on in the unique way of the Alluran.

“I have questions.”  Marcus’s hard angry voice interrupted her remembrance.  “Come on.”  Grabbing her hand and heading for a nearby computer terminal, a terminal created eons before the evolution of human beings yet perfectly designed for their use.

 

“I want to know what kind of species is capable of building an Ark to survive the end of existence.” 

Dread filled the three-thousand-year-old girl.  “Yes.”  She agreed meekly.  “I think I want to know as well.”  Why hadn’t she wondered about these things before now?  Why hadn’t she remembered the existence of what was in this place prior to needing to come here?  What else had she forgotten?  And how was she going to repair the damage caused by the explosion she had run here to escape?

More than just her life would have been affected.  She had changed time without the guidance of an Allura to show her the possible threads that would be affected.  She had crossed the primary veil without the ability to heal a breach if one occurred.  A sudden pain shot through her body, collapsing her to the ground.  Marcus tried to lift her, and when his new body failed him, held her tight instead.

CHAPTER 4

Meet the Semi's

“Haka.  What’s wrong?”  Culminating in her chest the ache made her gasp, it felt as if her heart had stopped beating.  The agony forced the air from her lungs making her breath come in short tight gasps.

“Medical emergency in the flight bay.”  The disembodied voice which had admitted them to the Chronos Vault played from its unknown source.  “Medical emergency in the flight bay.” 

 

“Help!”  The child Marcus screamed at the vacant cavern.  “Whatever you are, help her!”  Tears ran down his face.

 

“Medical inorganic semi-sentients requested.  Medical inorganic semi-sentients dispatched.”  A chime sounded then a hissing whoosh.  Marcus focused on the direction it came from and had to squint to make out three roughly humanoid shapes rushing toward him from the hazy distance.  Their footsteps were a strange combination of squelching and metallic clanging as they advanced far more quickly than their apparent pace indicated they should.

 

Even up close the…inorganic semi-sentients…were eye-raisingly indistinct.  Semi-amorphous constructs that had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head in an undulating shade somewhere between light gray and off-white with a satin finish.  Their appendages flowed over Haka’s prone form as she struggled for breath, gaping like a fish and clawing at her chest. 

 

“Interdimensional cardiac dis-phasing.” The same atonal voice as before echoed out the diagnosis as if it were nothing more than the daily menu if a bit less interesting than yesterday’s rehydrated rations.  They’d moved through time and space and to a whole new universe for her heart to fail? 

 

“Help her.  What do we do?”  Fear made his voice break sharply.  The sound of it foreign and distantly familiar at the same time.  His new youthfulness feeling as if it had undone his years of training.  If it had been one of his men he’d have been working on autopilot, but this was her.

 

“Immediate surgery is recommended.”  Surgery?  But she’d been healthy for three thousand years.  Was there some illness of her childhood that wasn’t in the history books?

“What?  Y…Yes…yes.”  He shouted, grasping at salvation.  He was not going through puberty again without his soulmate. 

One of the inorganic semi-sentients seamlessly slid an edge of itself under her, flowing swiftly into a protective cradle which then lifted her up to waist height.  Protrusions sprouted alongside of Haka’s body that were clearly monitors.  Their surfaces fluctuated and fluttered in time with her heartbeat and respiration.  Other’s projected information which the boy could only guess at and he followed beside cautiously as the inorganic semi-sentient flowed off, hissing and shushing on its way.

 

Faster than Marcus expected but not nearly as quickly as he would have liked, they arrived in what he assumed was the medical facility in this enormous base.  Though for all he knew there were multiple medical facilities.  Haka’s semi-sentient gurney attached the end which supported her head to a wall where a transparent dome flowed over her face.  It deflated briefly, and Marcus feared she would suffocate before she was healed.  Just as he was about to intervene the familiar vibration of air filtration systems whirred to life and her hood inflated.

 

More semi-sentients surrounded the prone girl and scooched the anxious onlooker out of the way.  A privacy curtain looking to be the same substance that covered Haka’s head poured from the ceiling and adjacent wall.  Hermetic seals formed as the fabric pulled tight, then stiff.  Finally, it became opaque. 

 

“Wait.”  His protest was short-lived when the flat of his hand hit a solid surface.  The former soldier might be a child now, but he still knew better than to fight a futile battle.  Fight smart, not hard, said every trainer ever.  Besides, he didn’t know how the semi-sentients would react to acts of violence or hysteria on his part.  This was a dangerous alien planet – was it a planet? – for all he was stuck trusting it.

 

He resolved to settle in for an interminable wait.  Hospitals always felt that way, didn’t they?  Even if this place didn’t seem much like a hospital with its stark opacity and lack of corners.  Light came from everywhere and nowhere at once.  Hurry up and wait. 

 

Time passed both too slowly and much too fast and information never arrived when one wanted it to. 

 

Moments after making his decision the partition gradually became see-through.  The hermetic seal broke with a pop, the sheet undulating in serpentine seduction as it retracted away.  It displayed mesmerizing shifting of subtle shades that Marcus could swear was almost color.  It probably took all of a minute to complete putting itself away.  And his beloved Haka was left lying there unfettered on her bed of inorganic semi-sentient. 

 

His first instinct was to run to her side.  Prudence and…if he was to be genuinely honest with himself…gold old-fashioned paranoia, gave him pause.  Was this a trick?  Was it safe to go to her?  Was that even his Haka?  Okay…maybe a little too suspicious.  That was his prerogative, wasn’t it?

 

Patience wasn’t his forte, and soon Marcus found his young form fidgeting restlessly.  His fingers itched to check his soulmate’s pulse and reassure himself that she was well.  Of course, she was alive.  That much he could tell from the gradual lift and lower of her abdomen, her breath coming from below her ribcage as was common among her kind.  It was also a trait of the very young among humans.

It didn’t last long, that patience he had never mastered, and after a few more moments twitching with temptation, he was running to her side.  Burying his face in her hair as he hugged her carefully. 

 

“You’re going to get hairballs.”  Haka’s voice was thin, and her words were clearly labored.

 

“What?”  A laugh escaped his lips and the boy wiped away tears he didn’t know he’d cried.

 

“Mom was always shedding her hair.”  Leaning back Marcus took the time to look her over.  The face he’d fallen in love with.  His first crush.  Solemn and in pain but with laugh lines that showed him that she could see the humor in even her heavy life.  “Dad, when he was still alive, used to say that she could give him hairballs by walking into the room.”  It made Marcus laugh for her since she was obviously trying to but failing.

 

“You’re going to need to rest for a while, aren’t you?”  She nodded, and he stood there, holding her hands while she rested.  Talking made her tired for the first few hours.  Standing made him tired as well.  Eventually, a semi-sentient popped up out of the floor to act as a chair for Marcus. 

CHAPTER 5

Sleep

Marcus had spent his life studying Haka in history books, and in his position as her guard to better protect and serve her.  She knew nothing of him and begged with little frowns, trembling lower lip, and wrinkled sniffles of her nose to hear every moment of his life that he could remember.  Her convalescence was spent regaled with tales of boyhood pranks, dates that had gone wrong, and life in an ordinary family.  A life, full of love, humor, and loss.

Food came, and the remnants of meals were taken away.  A lavatory was hidden behind one of the walls.  Though Marcus was willing to bet good money that it had just grown there to accommodate their needs. 

 

When he could no longer keep his eyes open his inorganic would roll and stretch into a bed just beside Haka’s, allowing them to hold hands while drifting off to sleep.  No matter how hard he tried it would not let them close enough to cuddle and would roll the two apart when he tried.  But hey, they were kids.  It didn’t matter all that much and the room was never too cold nor too warm.

Time passed.  How much?  Was it normal speed?  Did they age?  Those were questions The Voice that came from the ceiling would not or could not answer.  Haka got better though.  She insisted that her healing was fine, but there was a hesitation, a quaver in her voice that made him wonder if it was.  And she sat.  A lot.  Walking was too much exertion for her.

To pass the time, when they couldn’t utter another word, they would read the archives of information about the Chronos Vault.  There were many things they couldn’t access.  Anything historical seemed almost entirely off-limits. 

 

Neither Haka nor Marcus rated the rank of Time Keeper, whatever that was, and therefore were not allowed to see information which, since this place existed outside of the current universe, might allow them to alter history.  The Voice was quite adamant that the course of history had to play out correctly to ‘maintain chronological cohesion’.

However, the base information was completely fine.  Looking up who won the 3549 Olympics on Helios Nine; forbidden.  Because who wouldn’t want to know how the last Olympics went?  Learning how to blow up a sun with a gravitation cannon?  Totally legit reading material. 

Any technical sciency thing he wanted to know about,  anything he could learn, as long as it wasn’t history.  Haka seemed to have more access at first.  Then their inorganic hosts realized that everything she knew she would share with him and that clamped the lid down tight on the knowledge well.

Then one brighter-period-that-he-refused-to-call-day-because-the-base-had-no-proper-night, Marcus stumbled across a mention of cryogenics.  His people had never really mastered it but other races in the Chaos universe had.  Or thought they had at least.  But there were cryogenic facilities in the base and he remembered that Haka had told him that there were stasis chambers on the Ark’s.

Why would they use a stasis chamber though?  They would still be children.  Now both physically five, but with full access to their lifetime of memories.  It was creepy.  That was all he had to say on the matter and avoided looking at himself in the few rare instances that reflective surfaces occurred. 

 

The former guard had worked hard for his scars and muscles and kind of missed them.  Except for that tattoo his buddies had talked him into getting to celebrate graduation from basic training.  That he did not miss.

The future loomed, quite literally, in the future.  Every he-still-wouldn’t-call-them-days, Haka grew stronger.  What was the point of it if they stayed here?  Just the two of them outside of time.  If they did age, they couldn’t have children all alone here. 

 

Well, they could…but then they’d need to find people to keep their kids company before they died.  Or set out into unknown territory with children.  He wasn’t even a parent yet and Marcus already knew he wasn’t going to put himself through that kind of stress.

They needed to decide if they were going to stay or if they were going to go.  As much as he didn’t mind staying…there was still the fact that no matter how self-sufficient The Chronos Vault was, they were the only two people in it as far as they knew.  After discussing it at length.  In hushed whispered tones, of course, so as not to hurt the non-existent feelings of the inorganic semi-sentients.  A decision was made. 

 

They would go. 

 

Hundreds of doors like the one they entered through were placed regularly around the facility.  Each led to a different world.  Some to different realities, not just different planes of existence.  Many were closed forever.  Some led to lush planets and some led to uninhabitable places, the planets on the other side of them dead and incapable of supporting life.  Some led to the vacuum of deep space, others to crowded nebulae.  For once Semi, as Marcus had fondly come to refer to the disembodied voice which controlled all the inorganics of Chronos Vault, was helpful in a historical way.

He (because Marcus was also morally certain that only a man could be as much of an obtuse prick as Semi was) had provided the pair of children with a world that was unoccupied at the current time on the outside, but which would have other sentient and friendly life in a few hundred years.  Spacefaring technologically advanced humans which the two could easily quietly integrate themselves into.

Cryostasis was their viable option at that point.  Semi would not let the pair access the time-traveling features of The Chronos Vault.  Marcus insisted that they test it first.  Short little naps to see if it worked properly before going in for the long sleep. 

 

A minute.  Then two.  Then five.  Then ten.  An hour.  A day.  And so it went.  Gradually increasing his confidence that the long nap would be safe.  Haka seemed unreasonably trusting of the technology.  For Marcus, it was definitely a challenge to blindly accept on faith that it was safe.

Eventually came the he-still-wouldn’t-call-them-days-if-he-couldn’t-see-the/a-sun when it was time for the long sleep.  When they woke from this nap it would be centuries into an alien future.  Though Haka had been adamant that it was safe, she was the one who balked.  They stood there, two children hand in hand facing the stasis chambers which had become so familiar.  Haka’s fingers pale even against Marcus’ unidentifiable ethnicity which resulted in something between healthy-tan and weak-tea.

“Maybe we shouldn’t?”  Marcus’ head snapped around to pin Haka with a brief glare of disbelief.

“You say that now?”  A short eye roll that would have been uncharacteristic of a child his age if one didn’t know better caused the girl to give him a sarcastic snobby twist of her face.

“You’re the one who made me uncertain with all your doomsaying.”  Fear caused her mimicry of him to be more petulant than he had been.  “Oh no!  What if we can’t handle the grownups of the future?”  Her hands waved briefly before landing across her chest, an eyebrow raised in challenge.

“Touché.”  A sheepish blush joined Marcus’ grin of acknowledgment.  “I was…uncertain…”

“Marcus.”  Semi’s disembodied voice now chimed in with his two cents. 

“As I have informed you multiple times Marcus, the cryostasis chambers equipped in this facility are completely safe.  You will sleep with no awareness of time passing and will wake as if from a restorative nap.”  It was the same thing with every repetition and Marcus had now mastered the intonation completely.  “However, if you should choose not to continue with your decided course of action you will continue to be welcome in this facility indefinitely.”  That last part, that was new.

“Aw…you going to miss us Semi?”  Cocking his head as he spoke to the semi-sentient control system Marcus looked up at the corner of the ceiling where he believed the sound was coming from. 

“The facility will continue to function whether you are here or not.  Programming does not allow for the emotions which you attempt to attribute.”  It was a Semi answer.  Denial of any true sentience.

“That’s fine Semi.”  With a sigh, he coaxed Haka’s hand back into his.  “If you change your mind, we can stay in the here and now.  I don’t mind.”

“No.”  Haka took in her own deep steadying breath.  “Let’s do this.  “We can’t live alone forever and because of Semi’s programming about muddying the timeline…”  She waved a frustrated arm in an arc meant to encompass the entirety of the facility.  “…the only time and place we know for certain we won’t upset the spacetime continuum is the one plotted out for us.”

“Let’s do this then.”  Together they advanced on the stasis capsules, unfortunately not a more complex version of the inorganic semi-sentients which had been tending to them during their waking hours.  Sleek ovoid forms with windows in the front of auto-adjusting opacity.  Turning around, they both took each other’s hands one last time before leaning back into the front windows of their chambers and falling gradually through into the seats.

Marcus tried to see Haka but as always, once he was in the stasis chamber the sides enveloped him blocking any view of her.  Sadly, he reached for her, hand resting on the surface closest to her.  In her own cryostasis chamber, Haka did the same thing.  She didn’t know if he was returning the gesture, she’d made a great effort not to eavesdrop on his mind.  They were the last two infinitesimal remnants of the great Alluran Imperium, she didn’t want to know the thoughts of the only person who mattered to her anymore.

Their views clouded over.  The entry ports simultaneously lost transparency as the air in their respective pods thickened and clouded.  Soon the chemicals had put them to sleep, and then their time stopped.

CHAPTER 6

Then; 3,000 Years Ago

“Ow!  Ship!  Ship!  Ship!  Oh, gosh darned, spaceships.”  An absolutely average human male with sandy blonde hair hopped on one foot while shaking his right hand, ring finger extended.  He blew on the finger then sucked the hot oil that had landed on it off. 

 

“Ship thab was ‘till hob and I burnb my tongt.”  In another room, the inside security for the day sniggered.

 

A mostly dark-haired young woman with the poise of a goddess and the delicate beauty to match snorted from her unobtrusive spot on the far side of the kitchen island.  A perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched ever so expressively, and she pressed her lips together, sucking on them briefly to hold in the laughter trying to escape.  She covered the slip in her exquisitely elegant behavior by casually brushing a long lock of dark hair and that one shocking streak of white behind an ear. 

“You’re so silly, dad. We are way too old for you to be worrying about bad language around us.”  The mostly fair-haired Haka giggled at her father even as her more serious raven-haired sister hid her amusement.  “Besides, what’s the point when it almost sounds the same anyways?”

“The point kiddo, is that your mom, and her dad,” he pointed over to the older sister who was clearly of a different ethnicity and smugly trying not to smile, though her eyes danced, “…and I agreed to no bad language around you kids.”  He petered off smiling jovially yet uncertainly as he laughed at himself.

“So?”  The teen daughter shot back still giggling at her dad.  In some ways, she was more mature than her sixteen years.  In other ways…she was still young.  Younger than her father, Bret, had ever felt at her age.

“Soooo…”  He’d tried sounding stern, but he always failed.  Dad, or Brent as the older half-sister called him, was definitely the fun one of their parental units.  “…sooooo…You’re still my little girl and I’m going to talk around you and to you like you’re my little girl for as long as I can.”  He wiggled his face at his blonde daughter, a pale-skinned imitation of her mother, the way he had when she was just a baby.

“Brent, seriously?”  The darker-haired sister finally spoke up from across the table.  “Also, your bacon is burning.”  She lifted her pixie-like chin in the direction of the sizzling pan where the popping oil which had previously burned him was now popping even more furiously than before.

“Yep, seriously.  Your Grandpa Mitch and I have conferred and passed down the Edict of Fathers, agreeing that you two are not allowed to grow up.  Have to be kids forever.”  Both girls cracked up at that.

“Edict of Fathers?”  Haka laughed, tossing her blonde hair with its white streak over one shoulder.  Across the table, Angel gave a very unladylike snort and tried to cough to cover it up.  Failing, she hid behind a hand in embarrassment, fingers splayed over her forehead.

 

“They would.”  Bret was industriously scooping overdone bacon out of a pan and onto the cooling racks placed over a baking pan.  He had lifted the frying pan away from the stove and was trying not to pour the scalding grease over the bacon he’d managed to salvage. 

 

“Hey.  Don’t knock being a kid.  Enjoy every second of it.  You don’t get a second chance.”  Food salvaged, he tossed the hot frying pan into the sink, turned on the cold water, and jumped back as a cloud of steam and hot fat billowed violently into the air with a roar of sudden temperature change. 

 

The smoke detector began beeping in precise intervals and a couple of bodyguards in plain clothes poked their heads around the corner from the living room.  Brent shooed them distractedly with a raised hand.

 

“Dad!”  Lifting his head up at the cry of outrage, Brent focused on his daughter. 

 

“What?”  Her shoulders slumped and she glared with disappointment that she was going to have to remind him again.

 

“Bacon grease does not go down the drain.”  Her hands were on her hips in an unconscious mimic of her mother and Brent smiled despite himself even knowing that it would irritate the teen further.  “The grease jar is literally right.”  One hand came up and gestured towards the former instant coffee jar, two-thirds full with various fats and greases congealed into various states of solidity.

 

“Eewwww.”  Angel glared at the jar.  “No, I agree with Brent.  Down the drain and toss that jar that wishes it was gross enough to be a science experiment.”

 

“Oh, shut up! Just because you never deigned to learn to cook – have you looked inside your dad’s fridge?  He keeps actual science experiments with his food.”  From his spot eyeing the steaming sink Brent sighed.  One day.  Could they get along for one whole day?

“Why should I deal with the disgusting aspects of food when - ?"  Angel never took a potential insult lying down when she could instead gut her opponent verbally.  Her dark hair with its silvery-white streak started to glow softly as her power stirred within her.

 

“I nearly drank a Grevalodimex viral culture last time I visited you.”  Haka shot back, her own telekinetic powers rising in response to the perceived threat of her sister.  “It was labeled as ‘Peach Kombucha’” 

CHAPTER 7

Dad's Day

This was normally where Angel’s father would back away and let the two girls duke it out.  Claiming that his fragile human state would not survive a struggle between two such powerful sisters.  Their mother would just summon her own abilities and subdue both of them.  Sometimes with a none-too-gentle smackdown the likes most people would never experience in their lives.  When children wielded power the equivalent of small stars, sometimes you needed to nip quarrels in the bud real fast.

Brent?  He couldn’t let the sisters fight.  Letting frustration with their parents boil over into animosity between the two girls would just create bad blood that wasn’t their fault.  But God damn it was frustrating dealing with this over and over again.  It wasn’t their fault.  Yet, it got old.  He was just a mortal man among what might as well have been Goddesses and couldn’t they just be happy normal teenagers for a few fucking hours?

 

“Well…I…”  On her side of the table, Angel had stood up ready to catch whatever potential attack Haka sent her way.  “You – ”

 

“Knock it off.”  Brent pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen island.  “Just…knock it off.  And one of you do something about that smoke alarm.”  They started out of their stand-off reluctantly.  Angel waved one hand in an elaborate and elegant gesture toward the smoke alarm.  Hake not to be outdone just pointed at it with an angry thrust. 

 

The piercing repetitive piercing noise stopped with a plaintive final squawk as the device in the ceiling burst open raining down charred components and fragments of its housing.  Elbows on the kitchen island, the one human in the room lifted his hands to his forehead.  And groaned.

 

“Your mom is going to be pissed.”

 

It didn’t require more than that.

 

“One day.”  He continued quietly, head still in his hands.  “We get one day a month to just hang out and be people instead of having to deal with…”  He waved his hand out the large window over the sink.  Both girls looked up shamefacedly.  In the distance, they saw the gleaming building where their mother and Angel’s father were working.

Beyond it.  Ships.

 

Enormous cargo ships.  A massive spaceport ferrying goods and people up to the interstellar vessels in orbit.  Further in the distance on the top of a mountain was the thin silvery line of a space elevator. 

 

But closer, in the yard between the house and the impenetrable security gates, was a veritable army of security guards.  Loaded with weapons.  Multiple anti-aircraft missile launchers were parked on the lawn.  And there were others.  Those who clearly were more than human, like the two girls in the kitchen.  Those who could bring the pain of particle physics just by thinking about it.

 

“This is my day with you girls.  And I just want to have fun and forget that everything is changing.  Just for a few hours.  Can we just be us and not worry about all of that out there?”  It was clear from the surprise on the girls’ faces that they hadn’t realized he knew what was underneath all of their worry, fears, and bravado.  The glow about them both drained away with their anger at each other.

 

“Sorry, Dad.”  A blonde girl with a white streak in her hair mumbled at the same time as a part-Asian girl with a white streak in her hair whispered…

 

“Sorry, Brent.”  Both looked down.  Sad for a moment until Brent clapped a hand together and forced a smile.

 

“Now.  We are going to finish breakfast.  We are going to make pancakes.  And scrambled eggs.  Then…”  He held up a finger for emphasis, “…Then we are going to eat said breakfast while playing reeeally old video games and beating all of your mom’s old score records.”  Both girls had brightened until the very end when Haka’s eyes dimmed again.

 

“Um…How long were we planning on doing that?”  Haka asked hesitantly.

 

“Oh.  My.  God.  You didn’t tell him?”  Angel stared at her younger sister in disbelief.

 

“Tell me what?”  He’d already begun gathering the supplies for pancakes knowing that time was limited.

 

“I have a date with my boyfriend.”  It came out quiet.  Meek.  But casual-like.  As if it was the most normal thing in the world for Haka, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the most heavily guarded family in the world, to have a boyfriend her father, her bodyguards, and all of the security staff didn’t know about. 

 

Because if anyone of them had known, Brent sure as hell would have been told.

 

“No.”  He shook his head in denial and puffed out his cheeks with some air in thought. 

 

“Nope.  You do not have a date.  Because you are too young to have a boyfriend.  And dating is not allowed.”

CHAPTER 8

Dad's Day

“I’m sorry.”  Haka definitely sounded anything but sorry and Brent rolled his brown eyes at his daughter.  He knew what this was.  It was a teen, thinking that they were grown.  Well, she wasn’t and he knew better.  “Mom was married and had a daughter by the time she was my age.  How can I possibly be too young to have a boyfriend.”

Brent’s brain wanted to fry the words with lightning – something he, as a human, had no ability to do – even as he heard them coming out of his daughter’s mouth.  And, he’d expected to have this conversation with her at some point.  He’d always known that if…no, when, she decided she was old enough to date, it wasn’t going to be after she was what he considered a proper age for it.

“Your mother was married and had a daughter before she turned fourteen because she was being mind-controlled by an alien parasite.”  He shouted back.  “The only reason Allura bodies and minds mature at an accelerated rate historically speaking, is because the parasite kills adult hosts by forcing them to procreate and produce offspring for it to jump to as it murders its current host.”

“The Allura is not a parasite, Dad.”  Angel was aghast.  She’d never known her father held this belief about an aspect of their alien nature and culture.  And she was suddenly impassioned to speak up in the defense of countless generations before her.  “It’s a symbiote.”

“It kills its host through reproduction, Angel.”  He shouted back at her.  “THAT’S THE VERY DEFINITION OF A PARASITE!”  Both girls drew back in stunned silence.

They’d heard adults shouting before. 

Of course, they had. 

 

Their mother. 

Her first husband, Angel’s father. 

 

Their paternal grandfather, Mitchell shouted at and about Angel’s father all the time.  You couldn’t visit Pappy Wadsworth without him having at least one angry rant about the man who’d father a child on his daughter before she turned sixteen.  Which damn well would not have happened if anyone had told him that he even had a daughter for the first sixteen years of her life.

Hell, they’d even heard Generals shouting at their mother.  Arguing with her about how things should be.  And that was scary the first few dozen times.  Especially when their mom was on the verge of losing her temper back, with her anger barely controlled and power gathering around the officers who were oblivious to the growing danger they were in. 

Until Brent Kane calmly interrupted and explained why things were going to happen the way the lady wanted.  Brent was always calm.  Funny.  Happy.  The goofy protective dad who didn’t have the slightest malice toward anyone. 

Generals were always shocked by how calmly Brent Kane explained their impending doom to them if they continued on their stupid course of action.  Shouting, screaming, raging Generals, Presidents, and Prime Ministers who thought they could manipulate the current Allura the way they had manipulated the generations that had died before her, slaves to the compulsive reproductive natures of their symbiotes…

But neither sister had ever heard Brent shout.  They’d never seen Brent angry.  He’d never…ever…hated anything the way they now realized he hated the symbiote that lived within their mother.  The thing that made her power among the Alluran people greater than any other.  The thing that allowed her to lead unchallenged by any.

 

The thing that would someday reside in one of them.

 

“Is that why you don’t love Mom anymore?”  It was Haka that broke the silence.  Bitter with the depressing realization that it was a matter of her mother’s very nature that had driven her parents apart and might, someday, drive her father to no longer have affection for her either.

 

Brown eyes stared at his daughter with disbelieving shock.  His face drooping with helpless sorrow.

 

“Is…is that what you think?”  The sandy-blonde head lowered as his hands covered his face.  “Of course, that’s what you think.”  And then he did something that terrified both girls.

 

He started crying.

CHAPTER 9

A Tragic Love Story

“Why?”  Haka was confused as to why her dad was crying about this.  It was common knowledge.  “Why are you crying, Dad? 

“Yeah!”  The older sister was now offended on behalf of her mother.  “You and Mom are rarely in the same building together let alone the same room.”  She scoffed.  “I know my Dad keeps trying to convince her to come back to him but she won’t because she’s still in love with you.  But you, you can barely even look at her despite the fact that you supposedly live here together.”

 

“Oh.  God.”  Brent began sobbing even harder.  “Is this what she thinks?  Does she think I don’t love her?  I love her so much.  I just.”  Sob.  Hiccup.  He stumbled over to the stove and grabbed one of the kitchen towels hanging off the handle.  Blowing his nose on it he then used the dirtied towel to wipe his tears.

 

“Eww.  Dad.”  The younger sister grabbed a roll of paper towels off the holder on the island and tossed it to her father.  “Here.  Catch.”  He caught it easily then fumbled it slightly.  That alone told his daughter how distraught he was.  Brent Kane was known the world over for his physical aptitude.

 

“So, you love Mom?  But you haven’t slept in the same room as her in what?  Ten? Twelve years?”  The dark-haired daughter narrowed her eyes at her sister’s father in disbelief. 

 

His obvious distress did not convince her.  She knew her father could conjure tears on command.  Brent had always seemed made of more honest stuff.  Which she assumed was why her mother liked him more than her ex-husband.

 

“Girls.  Did you not just hear what I said about how the Allura parasite kills its adult hosts through reproduction…” he paused significantly.  Waiting for them to make the connection and when he saw it wasn’t coming, he continued.  “…so, it can take over a younger host with a weaker mind and self-identity. 

 

The girls just looked at him dumbly. 

 

“That’s.  Not.  What it’s – ”  Angel tried to insist but his words had her questioning what she knew.  “But Mom didn’t die when she had us.”

 

“And she had a sister once.”  Haka volunteered, determined to prove that she knew just as much as Angel.  Also, this argument was important to her being allowed to have a boyfriend.  So…

 

“Her sister was a clone.”  Brent slid down a cabinet to sit on the floor and tossed a snotty tissue at Haka moodily.  “A backup replacement for your mother.  And your mother had to have her crystal heart removed, twice,” Two fingers shot up over the edge of the kitchen island for emphasis. 

 

“It grew back both times you know.  She had to have it removed during both her pregnancies to prevent the Allura symbiote,” The word came out in such a way that both girls flinched back from it as if it were a slur.  “From jumping ship to you girls and burning her alive into a radioactive pile of ash in the process.”

 

“Oooohhhhh!”  Angel breathed softly.  She finally got it and Brent cocked one of his eyebrows at her with a nod of exasperation.

 

“Yessss.”  The melancholy man on the floor hissed at the injustice of the tragedy.

 

“Wait.”  Haka was glancing between her unhappy father and brightly blushing sister.  “I don’t get it.  Can someone explain?”  After one glance at his daughter Brent knew he couldn’t explain.  He turned to Angel.

 

“Your Mom said she had The Talk with you girls about…”  He made an indistinct waving gesture with his hands and mouthed ‘S. E. X.’ while blocking his daughter’s view of his lips with one hand.

 

A scoff, an annoyed shoulder sag, and an eye roll of epic irritation and vexation greeted his actions.  It was truly an eye-roll for the ages.  Something that could have won the Sarcastic Eye Roll Olympics if it were a thing.

 

“Don’t roll your eyes at me with that tone of voice young Missy.  I’m still your…Step, no that’s not right.  Your…Mom’s…Current…Partner.”  He finished lamely.  Because even though Brent had spent more time raising Angel than either of her parents, he still technically had no legal claim on the girl.  She wasn’t his daughter.

 

“How am I supposed to know if Mom had the sex talk with Haka?  I’m several years older than her.  She had it with me a…while ago.”

 

“OH!”  Haka’s eyes went round and huge for a moment as she realized where the discussion was going.  “Wait.  That’s why you aren’t with-with Mom?  You’re afraid she’ll get pregnant?”  Then she frowned.  “Eww!  Gross, Dad!  And isn’t she too old for that?  She’s like forty.”

 

Her older sister rolled her eyes at Haka and Brent joined in this time with a sigh of resignation.  They were having this discussion.  Right now.  And he was hating his life because of it.

 

“You’re Mom is an Alluran, Haka.  What’s the average lifespan of an Alluran.  One that doesn’t have a ‘symbiote’?”  He made air quotes as he said that word he hated and even though he said it without sarcasm or disgust in his voice, that simple action with his hands conveyed both emotions succinctly.

 

“I know some that are hundreds of years old.”  She started then added hesitantly.  “But some of the histories speak of them living for thousands of years.”

 

“Tens of thousands of years.”  Brent corrected his daughter and she frowned thoughtfully.  “Would a species that lives for tens of thousands of years without physically aging lose its reproductive viability after the first couple of decades?  Or would a female of that species be capable of conceiving children even if she were thousands of years old?” 

 

“Oh.”  It was quiet.  Soft.

 

“Yes.  Oh.”  Brent nodded at her not unkindly but not without patience.  “You were an accident.”  He continued.  “And we did, everything, and I mean everything right.  You shouldn’t have happened.  But the symbiote takes measures to force conception and start the reincarnation cycle when it wants a new host.”  Haka’s face began to crumple.

 

“I was an accident?”  But her father would not let her feel unwanted.

 

“Yes.  But we love you with all of our being.  I love you and would never trade you for anything.  And I don’t regret having you.  But your mother barely survived.  Do you understand?  We had to cut out her crystal heart.  The matrix that the symbiote uses to transfer into the infant host body.  It had to be done while she was pregnant, close to giving birth, but before contractions started.  We had to cut it out and then cut you out prematurely.”

 

His words were coming out faster now.  Jumbling together in a rush because he’d never told anyone how it had felt.  He’d never had to articulate the words of his soul-shattering terror that he would lose his beloved and his daughter to the parasitic creature that ruled their lives but gave them their powers.

 

“And that was the second time it was done.  Every time she has a child, if the matrix has regrown, it will have to be cut out to prevent her dying when the child is born.  So, I decided to make sure that would never be a problem.  And then…”

 

“You drifted apart.”  Angel finished for him.  “The two of you spent so much time fighting the symbiote that it was easier to just not be in each other’s company.”

 

“Yes.”  There was a weary finality to the word and his shoulders collapsed in on themselves.  “The symbiote hasn’t forced her to seek a new partner…yet…but we can’t be alone together or it starts trying to manipulate us.  Your mother just through the influence it has over her thoughts, and me through pheromones and the strange magic your kind have.”

 

“That’s so tragic.”  Haka sniffed and Brent laughed shakily at his daughter.  She had that same tone of voice she reserved for the romance stories she read when she was shipping her favorite couples.

 

“Yeah.”

 

There was silence for a bit before Haka quipped up.

 

“But none of this explains why I shouldn’t have a boyfriend, Dad.  I don’t have a symbiote.”

CHAPTER 10

Yet!

Brent rose to his feet with a sigh.

“Yet.”  It was one word but it carried so much meaning.

 

“What?”  Both girls turned to him with surprise.

 

“You don’t have a symbiote, yet.”  He emphasized the word carefully enunciating it.  Biting down hard with a click of his teeth after the ‘tee’.

 

“But we can’t get one.  It’s passed on to a child at birth.  We are already born.”  Angel was absolutely certain of this information. 

 

“It is passed through the crystal heart matrix of the mother to the daughter upon the death of the mother.  It doesn’t have to happen at birth, the symbiote has just been choosing to do that so that it can control more of the host.”  Angel’s face fell with horror.

 

“You mean that if Mom dies it goes into one of us?”  She reeled and then caught herself on the edge of the kitchen island she’d been leaning on.  “Me because I’m oldest.”

 

“Yep.”  Brent rubbed at the migraine that had begun throbbing behind the bridge of his nose.  “You both have your crystal hearts intact.  Anywhere in this universe, when your mother dies, the symbiote will jump into you and make you the next Allura.  If you are dead it will jump into Haka.”

 

“What does it matter if our crystal hearts are intact?”  Haka questioned.  “You just said Mom’s grew back, twice.”  Here, Brent smiled at his daughter.

 

“Ah.  But neither you nor Angel have a symbiote in you.  The matrix cannot regrow once removed because it is a creation of the symbiote.  As far as we know.”

 

“Holy shit!”  Angel breathed.  Why didn’t my father tell me this?  I’d have had it removed years ago.

 

“Because your father serves the Alluran Empire.  There has to be an Allura to lead it.”  Tears pricked Angel’s eyes as she heard the words, and she knew they were right.

 

“Duty before love.  He’s always said it.  I should have known.”  She sat down under the weight of the betrayal.  Then standing abruptly, went to the coffee maker for another cup.  It was the old-fashioned drip kind that brewed entire pots.  Anachronistic like all the other appliances in this home.  A kitchen of decades past.

 

Or more accurately, a human kitchen with human technology.  None of the newer advancements from the Allurans.

 

“Coffee?”  She was already grabbing fresh cups for Brent and her sister before either responded.

 

“Cocoa for your sister.”  Brent amended automatically.  Coffee has too much caffeine.

“Heck with that.”  Haka interrupted.  “If I’ve got an eventual killer date with a manipulative alien parasite, I want to try coffee.”

 

“It’s not actually that good.”  Angel reminded her.  “Not black at least.”

 

“Can we make foo-foo coffee like they sell at coffee shops?”  She asked hopefully, her voice and uplifted eyebrows showing exactly how young she really was.  “Like one of those caramel thingies that Mom always drinks?”

 

“Sure kid.”  Her Dad walked over and ruffled her hair.  “I think we’re going to need quite a bit of fortification for the rest of this conversation.  It’s clear that no one has told either of you about the fact that Alluran women can store sperm and become pregnant at any time after having unprotected intercourse.”  Angel, spewed hot black coffee from her fresh cup all over herself and the counter.

“What?”

 

“What?”

 

“What?”

 

“What?”

 

The third and fourth ‘what’s’ had come from one of the pairs of female bodyguards who’d been standing unobtrusively outside the kitchen.  They were Alluran themselves and had not been made aware of that particular facet of their biology.

 

“Oh. Fuck me.”  Brent muttered as sat down and look up at the ceiling as if to say ‘Why me, God?  Why would you do this to me?’  “Pull up a chair and gather around boys and girls.”

 

Four security personnel crept hesitantly into the room as the girls sat down with Brent.  Two of the guards had managed to keep their surprise to themselves.  Nonetheless, they wanted to know and had been invited in. 

“So.  Alluran Reproductive Biology 101.  Apparently not taught in school.”

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