Shad punched the bastard out, as he had so many times before. He wanted to beat the mind-slave bloody, but he knew it wouldn’t do any damn good. Harper had been taken by the Hive and he had to get to her. But how?
He looked around and down at himself. He was dressed as he had been while he was playing her bodyguard in black leather trousers and a matching vest and boots. But his ship was nowhere to be found.
Of course it’s nowhere to be found, idiot, he berated himself. It’s still in my future—the future where the Hive has taken over and this is clearly my past and Harper’s present. She Who Alters sent us back to the beginning of the loop.
Or had she?
Shad looked down at the looper embedded under the skin of his forearm. It was completely dead without even the slightest flicker of light. The meaning of this began to dawn on him and two things became clear: One, She Who Alters hadn’t sent them back to the beginning of the loop because there was no longer any loop. She had simply sent them back to the time and place on Earth where he had first met Harper. And Two, with the looper permanently out of commission, he had no way to get his ship and go after Harper.
“I need help to get to her—help to rescue her,” he said out loud, running both hands through his hair.
And there was only one place to get it.
“No,” Shad muttered. “No, I can’t…I don’t fucking dare. The Time Warden said there could be dire consequences.”
But there was no help for it—there was nothing else he could do.
He would have to go to the Kindred Mother Ship and seek help to get to Mars and get Harper back before it was too late.
If it wasn’t already too late.
He rolled the unconscious mind-slave over and searched the pockets of his shorts for keys. He would have to take his vehicle to the HKR building and get a ride up to the ship from there. It was the only way.
* * * * *
“Commander Sylvan, forgive me for interrupting your work but there is a strange warrior here to see you,” a voice from his viewscreen said. It belonged to Communications Officer Zern, a Blood Kindred who also served as a kind of secretary to help keep his complicated schedule in order. Zern had a worried look in his pale blue eyes as he spoke. “He is…most agitated.”
Sylvan frowned. “What? Who is he? Do I know him?”
“He claims that he knows you,” Zern said. “And he says it is a matter of life and death and…” He cleared his throat. “The Hive.”
“The Hive?” The short hairs at the back of Sylvan’s neck began to prickle. The Kindred had been searching the Earth’s solar system for traces of the insectile race for months now but they had found nothing. Though he wished the Hive had gone back through the blind to where they had originally come from, Sylvan knew they hadn’t. Their home world was abandoned, so where had they gone?
“Should I show him in?” Zern asked. “He begged a ride from the Tampa HKR building up to the Mother Ship specifically to speak to you.”
“Yes, show him in.” Sylvan straightened up and pushed the work he’d been doing to one side of his orderly desk.
“There’s just one thing,” Zern said. “He…ahem…wants to be certain you’re alone. Specifically, he wants to make sure your Second Brothers Deep and Lock and their children are nowhere near your office before he comes in to see you.”
It seemed an extremely strange question but it was easy enough to answer.
“No,” Sylvan said. “Neither my Second Brothers or their children or their mate, Kat are here. I am alone.”
“All right.” Zern nodded. “I’m sending him in.”
The viewscreen went dark and after a long moment, there was a knock on Sylvan’s door.
“Come,” he called and the door panel slid to one side.
Standing in the doorway was a male of around seven feet with coal black hair and the strangest eyes Sylvan had ever seen—they were white but with shifting rainbow patterns in them. Right now those strange eyes seemed to burn in the warrior’s face as he stared at Sylvan, who moved uncomfortably in his office chair.
The male looked familiar somehow but Sylvan would have sworn he’d never seen him before in his life. Who was he?
“Uncle Sylvan,” the warrior rumbled, stepping in and making sure the door sealed shut behind him. “I shouldn’t be here but I have no choice.”
“I’m sorry…” Sylvan rose from behind his desk and came around to give the strange male a warrior’s clasp. “Do I know you?” He held out his hand and arm but the male recoiled from his touch.
“I don’t dare,” he said, taking a step back. “I was told it might cause a very bad reaction if I touched anyone from my past—especially people I was close to or my family. I shouldn’t even be in close proximity to you but as I said, I have no choice.”
“From your past?” Sylvan shook his head. “I don’t understand. And why did you call me ‘uncle’?”
“Because you are my uncle—my fathers are your Second Brothers. I’m Shad—Shadow, the son of Kat and Deep and Lock,” the male told him.
Sylvan frowned. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Shadow is a child, less than six cycles old. I just saw him this morning when I dropped my own two children off at the care center.”
“Kaleb and Kara,” the male who claimed to be Shadow said. “Yes, I know—I grew up playing with them. And with my brothers, War and Peace and my cousin Daniel who is the son of Baird and Olivia as well as Ziza, the daughter of Lauren and Xairn. We all grew up together. But in this time we’re all still children.”
“What do you mean, ‘in this time?’” Sylvan asked cautiously. He was beginning to wonder if he had a madman on his hands.
The male who claimed to be Shadow took a deep breath.
“I’m from the future,” he said in a low, even tone, as though he was hoping Sylvan wouldn’t “freak out,” as his mate Sophia was wont to say. “One possible future, I should say—a future I’m trying desperately to prevent. But it might already be too late.”
“From the future?” Sylvan couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice.
“Just listen,” the strange warrior pleaded. “Don’t judge my story until you hear it all. My future and yours depends on it.”
Though his claim was bizarre, his tone was even and he displayed no outward signs of insanity. Sylvan had seen and heard many strange things in his life, he reminded himself, and he’d learned not to discount something—no matter how odd it seemed—until he understood it thoroughly. Maybe this male wasn’t crazy after all. At any rate, he decided to at least give him a chance.
“All right,” he said, keeping his own voice steady and calm as well. “Prove it to me—my first instinct is to throw you out but I won’t if you can prove your story.”
“That’s just it—I don’t have any physical proof.” The male claiming to be Shadow sighed and raked a hand through his coal black hair. Of course the child Shad had white hair and big, black eyes but Sylvan knew that a Shadow Twin’s hair and eye coloring reversed at puberty. So that, at least, seemed to be authentic.
“Tell me something then,” he urged. “Make me believe you.”
“Gods, don’t you think I want to?” the male demanded. “Every moment I spend here trying to convince you is another moment that bastard X’izith has alone with Harper. Another moment he has to…to breed her.” His face contorted and he spat out the word as though it left a foul taste in his mouth. “She’s still a ten’sora so if he gets his fucking barb in her—”
“Wait—a ten’sora, you say?” Sylvan exclaimed. “How do you know that word? That information is classified—it was only recently brought to us through a secret mission on Yonnie Six.”
“I know because in the future—my future—Harper, who is a ten’sora, is taken by the Hive and used to breed an army of their fucking grubs.”
The words seem to hurt the male coming out—it was like he was ripping out his guts to speak them—but he went doggedly on anyway.
“Less than five years after they took her, they were strong enough and numerous enough to lay waste to this entire solar system. This—all of it—is gone.” He waved a hand to indicate everything around them. “They blew the Mother Ship out of the sky and overran the Earth in a matter of days.”
Sylvan shook his head at this bleak vision of the future.
“If that’s so, how did you survive? You must still have been a child at the time if your story is true.”
“We were on a field trip to Earth—to the Tampa Theater,” the male explained. “War and Peace and Kara and Kaleb and Ziza and myself and all the others of our age group—our whole class. We were there when the Mother Ship blew.”
“And you survived? A group of children?” Sylvan asked.
“We made the theater our base. Daniel became our leader and we formed the core of the Resistance and spent years of our lives fighting the invaders.” He sighed. “We looked out for each other, loved each other. War and Peace finally joined with Ziza but then she was taken by the Hive and…Oh Goddess.” He raked a hand through his hair again, his strange eyes filled with horrors Sylvan could only guess at.
“And what?” he urged gently.
“And War had to take care of her—had to shoot her. Infestation of a female by their fucking grubs is a death sentence. It was a mercy killing but War didn’t see it that way. He blamed himself—hated himself.” The warrior squeezed his strange white eyes tightly shut. “It was then that I cried out to the Goddess and she opened a door for me—a portal to the Time Warden. He gave me this looper.”
The male held out one arm and turned it over, showing a twisting whitish shape implanted under the skin there.
“A…looper?” Sylvan frowned and raised one eyebrow.
“It sets up a time loop which allows you to go back and try to change or fix one thing. But it’s dead now—out of juice. I can’t try again. Gods…”
“So… you’ve tried before?” Sylvan asked.
“So many times.” Shad—for Sylvan was beginning to believe it really was Shad now—looked up. His shifting eyes were dry and hard. “You know, it killed something in War and Peace when War did what he did, when he had to kill Ziza. They…sacrificed themselves making a diversion so I could get here. But if I can’t save Harper it will all be for nothing. All the deaths…all the struggle…all for nothing.” He raked a hand through his hair. “And Harper, I love her. Goddess help me, I love her so fucking much and I failed her. Failed her again and this time there’s no second chance…”
The torment in his eyes was more than Sylvan could bear.
“You haven’t failed,” he told Shad gently. “I believe you, Shadow.”
“You do?” A slight glimmer of hope dawned in those white, pearlescent eyes. “Thank the Goddess!”
“But I don’t understand—why did you never come to me before, if you’ve tried in the past…the future…” Sylvan shook his head. “I don’t know the right terminology. But why did you never come to warn us before?”
“I was told by the Time Warden that it was extremely dangerous for me to spend too much time in a timeline where I already am—where the younger me is alive at the same time as the older me,” Shad explained. “Being this close to my past self is wrong. The closer we are, the more likely something bad will happen.”
“What might happen?” Sylvan was intrigued but Shad shrugged uncertainly.
“The Time Warden wasn’t specific. He only said it was dangerous for me and that I should stay away—that’s why I avoided the Mother Ship and got back to my own timeline as quickly as possible every time I reached the start of the time loop.” He lifted both hands. “To be honest, I’m amazed that just being in the same room with you and on the same ship as my younger self hasn’t killed me.”
“You were willing to take the risk of dying to save your female,” Sylvan said. He admired the young warrior’s courage.
“I would rather die than fail her again,” Shad said simply. “But it wasn’t only for me that I tried to stay away from this timeline—Harper is extremely vulnerable here. This is her present and the past fights more strongly against being changed the closer you get to the deciding event.”
“Harper is the ten’sora female you love who we need to save,” Sylvan said.
Shad nodded. “She’s just been taken by the Hive—about an hour ago. I got here as fast as I could but still, she was transported instantaneously because X’izith used those damn E’lo stones to take her. The Goddess alone knows what he’s done to her by now.”
The male’s knowledge of the E’lo stones and ten’soras and all the Hive business including the name of their Sovereign further convinced Sylvan that he was telling the truth. How else could he get such knowledge? But it was more than that—there was an earnest air about this adult Shad that Sylvan knew well from speaking to the child Shad. He had examined the boy and run numerous tests on him at Kat’s insistence and he thought he knew him as well as any adult can know a child who isn’t his. Still, he wanted to make one more test…
“Forgive me, Shadow, but just for my own peace of mind…what was the name of your stuffed animal—the one Sophia and I gave you for Christmas last year? Or, I suppose it would be…” He tried to calculate, based on what he estimated Shad’s age to be. “I’m not sure how many cycles it was in your past,” he concluded at last.
“It was a stuffed vranna,” Shadow said. “You gave him to me when I was four cycles old. I named him ‘Snuffy—he was best friends with my friend Tsandor’s stuffed elephant, Lumpy.” He laughed self-consciously and then his eyes went hard again. “Tsandor was one of the first to fall. The Hive caught him in a fire-fight. He…was killed almost instantly.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Sylvan told him firmly. Now he was certain beyond the shadow of a doubt—no one else would know these intimate details of Shad’s childhood. Though many would not have been able to swallow the idea of time-travel and a desperate warrior from the future, Sylvan had seen strange things before in his service to the Goddess and the Kindred people. And he suspected this would not be either the strangest or the last—at least if they hurried.
“Thank you for believing me.” There was terse sincerity in Shad’s voice. “Now I need you to help me get Harper back.”
“I’ll do everything in my power,” Sylvan promised. “But where is she? We’ve been combing the solar system for the Hive for months and haven’t seen a trace of them.”
“That’s because they’ve gone to ground,” Shad said grimly. “They’re hiding on Mars—right under your nose.”
“Mars?” Sylvan raised his eyebrows. “So close? That’s brazen of them.”
“It’s a temporary base but buried deep under the mountains in the south pole of the planet,” Shad explained. “X’izith never planned to be there long. His plan has always been to conquer the Earth for its resources and females.”
“I’ll put together a squadron at once,” Sylvan promised. “You’ll ride with me and we’ll concentrate on getting to Harper.” He cocked his head. “Forgive me but…are you bonded to her? Do you have a mental link so that you can let her know we’re coming when we get within range?”
Shad shook his head. “Not a full link, no. But we have formed a partial bond. I know it because…” He winced. “Because I felt Harper’s fear as she was taken.”
“We’ll find her,” Sylvan promised. “As she is a ten’sora she will be too valuable for Sovereign X’izith to risk damaging her.”
“That gives me hope,” Shad admitted, nodding. “What worries me is what he might be doing to her right now. The idea of that bastard getting his breeding barb anywhere near her…”
Sylvan frowned in sympathy. “Understood.” Unthinking, he put a hand on the younger male’s shoulder, wanting to offer support. But at his touch, Shad reeled backward, a hand clasped to his forehead. For just a moment, Sylvan swore he seemed to fade right before his eyes.
“Forgive me!” he exclaimed, starting backwards. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s all right. I’m all right.” Shadow took a deep breath and seemed to solidify again. “For a minute there it was like I could feel something pulling on me somehow.”
“Perhaps it was your future pulling you back,” Sylvan said. “Perhaps that is the danger this Time Warden you spoke of meant when he warned you against staying in this time.”
“Maybe.” Shad shook his head briefly, as though to clear it. “I’m okay now—we have to go. Harper is in danger.”
“We’ll go at once,” Sylvan promised. Being careful to keep his distance from the other male he added, “And may the Goddess go with us.”
“That’s my prayer too,” Shad said grimly. “She told me to trust but it’s so fucking hard to do that at a time like this.”
“Still, she is close to her children in times of pain and stress,” Sylvan said. “You might not always feel her but she’s there. I believe she’ll bring us through this, Shad. She wouldn’t have made a way for you to come to us otherwise.”
“I hope you’re right,” was all Shad said but there was a haunted look in his strange eyes that made Sylvan fear for him. If this didn’t go well, if they weren’t able to save the female Shadow loved, he didn’t give much for the warrior’s chances of surviving her demise. Even the partial bond they shared might be enough to drag him down with her.
Please, Goddess—let it not be so, he prayed silently. Let us be in time. Protect the girl until we can reach her. Please!