Joe has seconds to assess the growing conflagration. The bear riders outnumber the better-equipped tiger riders. The tiger riders are a greater threat to the crew if they survive the battle. Joe grips his long-bladed dagger in his bottom left hand. It takes three arms to pin back the neck of a warrior in order to repeatedly stab at vital neck veins.
With the tiger rider fallen, Joe retrieves his blades despite being mere knifes to his opponents. He now defends against the blows of the curved swords they carry. Joe locks steel with another tiger rider. With demonic speed the master Calthos warrior buries the sword in a second tiger rider before he’s able to impale Joe on his scythe weapon. In fan twists Joe drives his weapons through the third tiger rider, paving the way for the bear riders to overwhelm them.
The honed rock door slides open.
Reynard loses track of his sword brother in the battle occupying the natives.
JC jumps awake. “Commander!”
He steadies the telepath. “Now’s our chance to find Michelle.”
“Pandora,” JC warns.
The name had meaning for Earth-born humans before they learned they were actually Osirian. Knowledge means many myths, however deluded through history, advert to truth. Gods could travel among the heavens—in spacecraft. What other myths were fallacious?
“I go in—I release all the evils into the galaxy?” Reynard confirms.
“I saw it. I’ve seen what you release and what happens to us up to the point at which it costs me my life,” JC pants.
“I try to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll had no idea. I see things every day beyond impossible. Trust in something yet beyond my understanding. Give up my oath to protect an innocent girl, who would be dead now if I hadn’t shanghaied her. I need to trust my crew. They live in this epoch. Getting a future vision is actually one of the more believable items I’ve experienced today.
“I have to get her back. All the ground Ki-Ton cost us. All the people we destroyed who weren’t our enemies. I can’t fix. But I’ll defend a scared girl I promised to protect.”
JC wobbles on her long legs. “I support you, Commander. Nothing undoes this choice. It shapes every action for the rest of your life.”
“I won’t let the princess die. Is the future you witnessed written in stone? I won’t risk—”
JC cuts him off. “We must go before the door closes.”
“You didn’t open it?” Reynard questions. Too many questions demand answers before he makes a command decision.
“Only one person could open it.”
“Ki-Ton.” Australia paces forward.
“You can’t.” JC holds up her palm, meaning “stop.”
“We can’t leave her out here,” Reynard protests.
The clash. Neither tiger nor bear riders make any headway with edged weapons. One tiger rider ignites a pain stick, sending a bear rider into convulsions and giving the tiger riders an edge they haven’t had before.
“Reynard, the door closes.” JC slips inside.
“I will be fine, Commander.” Australia stands firm before cowering in the shadowy corner of the cave.
Reynard swallows hard. He failed Leahla. He won’t let Australia face a senseless death as the poor cadet did. Don’t think. He bolts into the opening before he reconsiders leaving his first officer.
“She’ll be fine. Joe will protect her.” JC travels ahead of him as if she’s been here before.
“I know The Eir Basilica gives the impression of being oracular, but telepaths aren’t clairvoyant.”
The tunnel floor has a slow inclining grade even in the dim light.
“Reading thoughts does make one a bit prophetic, but the vision I had came from someplace else. I was inside the thoughts of someone who had already lived in the future.”
“So Ki-Ton’s a time traveler now?”
“No. Time is a humanoid invention. Actual movement beyond now would involve vast mathematic calculation based around gravitational constant of planetary positioning.”
“You’ve an understanding?”
“I’ve scanned the minds of many humanoids. I had to examine a group of scientists once as a kind of fact check before they were granted more funds. Their patrons wanted to know they could do what they were researching.”
“They invented a time machine?”
“No. They had sound theories but under their calculations an energy source of a G-class star would be needed.”
“Do you retain knowledge you scan?”
“If I scan Scott, I don’t retain his propensity for mechanical repairs. But if I read his mind on how to fix a burnt-out component and then perform the task, I should be able to duplicate it.”
“So you do, in a way.”
“There are stories of telepaths with a much higher rating than me who steal thoughts. It is a terminal offense.”
“A lot of your telepath laws end in death.”
“They burnt women they thought were witches on your planet.”
“In much more primitive times.”
“All cultures are primitive when it comes to something they don’t understand.”
“Invading someone’s personal thoughts has to hold a severe punishment, or they will return to burning telepaths at the stake.”
The tunnel opens into a chamber. It could be a greeting hall without a communal table or seating arrangements.
“Shape-shifters don’t need chairs,” JC says.
“You in my head again?”
“No. But it’s logical to assume you want to know why there’s not a bench in this room.”
“It’s no wonder people don’t trust telepaths if you are so perceptive even without reading thoughts.”
THE MEMBERS OF the Deliverance bridge crew face their captain with full attention.
Kantian shifts his weight to the back of his heels. Now he faces his moment of trust in Admiral Easter. Upon her undocumented word, he puts his career and the fate of the Confederation on
