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Chapter three: Hurricane

Clair Weli’sol:

“He just jumped out of the air lock.” Zane tried to reason to himself as he looked out into the swirling storm of cloud and lightning. Hyperspace. Also called the Echo by the mages, space where the distance between the dimensions were closer together. Here, entire galaxies can be passed with just a single step, decades can past by in seconds in either direction. People who don’t know what they’re doing got lost in this place. I remember a time when a ship accidentally ended up in a virtual reality world. But things rarely screw up these days. Just as long as you get the numbers right.

But someone jumping off the ship in the middle of the echo was unheard of. But this was Blake. A future version of him too. Anyone else would have their minds burnt up, but Blake obeys only a few laws if any.

“He probably couldn’t wait for a portal to open. Knowing him, he could open one from within the echo itself with some effort.” I explained looking out the airlock. I noticed that the tempest was more violent then normal, like it was reacting to something. “Or maybe not as much with this storm.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at it.” I went on. “This isn’t just a storm. It’s a hurricane.”

“And were sitting right in the eye of it.” Zane concluded. “So why’d he jump of the ship?”

“I saw the ship’s logs open on the terminal. Last departure and arrival attempt was in the search field. But why didn’t he remember unless...” I stopped mid sentence. “Mind Partitions. They’re probably starting to bleed into each other and he’s memories when they’re tripped restore themselves to the original partition so he doesn’t remember until he has to know, and by that time, he thinks that he just learnt the fact. But what triggered the memory? Get me the Tacyonic Kaleidoscope.”

Zane turned and walked off. “Trying to work out what the other Blake got into?” He asked.

“I’ve got a fish doing that.” I told him. “It’s pretending to be an audiobook. Something about a plane crash and time travel. Maybe a giant jellyfish too. If he’s in trouble, he’s got a transponder in the seams of his duster.” I think. He could have thrown that away awhile ago. “And the fish is like white noise. Annoying. Started blabbering on about a storm, or maybe it said swarm. Either way, we should expect the weather to be cloudy with a chance of giant locusts.”

“Then feed it to T-rex!”

“I am not feeding a talking fish to a dinosaur!”

“Then throw it over board!”

“You throw it over board! The T-rex is too heavy for me.”

“I meant the fish.”

The elevator beeped, and opened. I turned and saw two dragons, a green wyvern and a blue and yellow lang.

“Who are you?” The lang asked.

“I could ask you the same question.” I shot back. “Zane!”

“Yeah. I’ve got it Clair.” Zane said as he walked onto the flight deck with the Tacyonic Kaleidoscope. He saw the two dragons, same as me.

“It’s not Blake I’m worried about. Did either of them mention a lang and a wyvern?” I asked, receiving just a shake of his head. “Who are you two?” I demanded of the two dragons.

“Erm... Well...” They said flustered.

“Come on. I don’t have all day. I’ve got a time hurricane out there and one Blake who just threw himself out of the ship and the other is in self denial over a talking fish.”

“Clair. It’s Blake’s future were talking about.” Zane reminded me.

“It’s not his future I’m concerned about.” I told him him before turning back to the other two. “Names. Now. Or I’m getting my knives.”

“Eheh... I’m Henry and this is Keith.” The lang answered.

“Now that we have that sorted. I’m Clair and scaly over there is Zane.” I answered as I walked up to my terminal, dismissed a security alert (lots of those flying around) and started on my craft. “By the door Zane. Don’t fall off the ship.” I ordered the dragon.

“You two ok?” He asked after placing the machine where I asked.

“Kinda.” Henry said. “No clue how we got here, though.”

“Let me guess. You were flying along one day and the next thing you know, a flash of blue light filled your vision and you fell into a pit of lions while holograms with bobcuts aimed vaporised at you.” I said for him.

Henry scoffed and answered back with “No, I've only been a dragon for about an hour or so... Keith a little longer. We sorta fell through a hole and wound up in a pit of Pokeballs. The holograms were on-target.”

“More dragons?” I questioned. However, I wonder what happened to the lions.

“Great. What next? Griffens? Nagas?” Zane asked.

“Asks the formerly mythical creature of human imagination now proven to be reality by the brake down in space time.” I step away from my computer and face the two confused but still standing dragons. “Anyway. Welcome to the Nimbus. Terra’s first Kappa Class Ship.”

“Err... Thanks.”

“Now with that out of the...” I heard the terminal beep and open a security feed. “Great. More arrivals.”

“Is that Jamie?” Zane pointed out, looking at the video. Joining the lone sunelf was Charlotte, Glenn... and a very big bug...

Blake Indigo:

Alarms went off again. The air filled with static and a scream ripped though the air then stopped sudden... Wait... That sounded like....

“Oh. What now?” Ryan demanded.

I check my phone, pulling up the radiation detector app and found alot of tacyonic radiation. “Nothing serious.” I answered.

“Get it off of me!” I heard Jamie yell before she screamed out a range of chants as she fire off round after round of spells

“Intruder Airborne: Fire at will.” The Interface demanded as I hit a button on the container’s internal remote and the container moved down.

“Do you actually have a plan at all?” Ryan demanded. “Your friend sounds like she’s in trouble you know.”

“She is trouble.” I returned. “And yes. I’ve got a plan. Remember what I said about the warranty?”

“Yeah?”

“Get your best rocket and void it.”

“You serious?”

“Very.” I answered opening the container’s doors, letting another wave pokeballs out and showing a panicked sunelf mage try to fend off a beetle the size of a minivan. “Fire away.”

“I won’t refuse an offer like that!” He said, producing a rocket launcher and aiming across the tier and... “Bombs Away!”

BOOM

The force from the explosion was enough to send someone flying across the cargo bay and hit the beetle’s outer shell and took the bulk of the explosion, leaving Jamie and the rest of the ship unharmed.

I drew my revolver. “Keep that handy. There might be more.”

“You got it.”

We walked around the cat walk, Jamie meeting us half way. Then she was joined by two more familiar faces. The first was Glenn, his wolf like shape, form and fur of a feral animal miss matched with his easy going personality. And Charlotte, the teenage human turned psychic weapon. Even if looks couldn’t kill, her mind could fix that.

Charlotte shot me a smile as she hoilstered her mini-blaster. “You just can’t stay away from me can you.” She accused.

“Oh Hello. Haven’t seen a Lycan in ages.” Ryan greeted Glenn, almost surprising me that he didn’t tip his hat.

“I guess you haven’t been to Terra recently.” Glenn said, crossing his arms.

“Yeah. From a different timeli...”

“You!” Charlotte yelled, pointing at Ryan. “It was you!”

“What?”

“Blake. This is the guy who almost ran me over last week. I’m sure of it!” Charlotte yelled, pulling out a familiar top hat from her handbag.

“Right. Remind me to get that impostor lo...” Ryan started.

“Smells like you.” Charlotte went on, presenting the top hat... Ryan’s Top Hat, almost exactly the same hat he was wearing.

“Yeah. I kind of... had a little incident...”

“Don’t make excuses.” Charlotte interrupted.

“Guys.” I stepped in. “We might want to...”

“locusts!”