The Time Voyager's Obsession

Prophetic - I

“I thought you said you were a captain!” Hana cried out, clinging to her harness with pale knuckles as the vessel shook violently.

“I was a captain of the royal guard, and that was over a decade ago. I never claimed to be a pilot,” Tiberius answered ruefully, pushing up a lever that sent the shuttle blasting forward.

“All hells! All hells!” Hana shrieked as the hull began to roll. She squeezed her eyes shut to the spiraling view of space, only opening them when the nauseating motion had ceased. Tiberius was watching her from the corner of his eye, lips twitching with a wry grin.

“I think if we weren’t heading into the very jaws of death, I would find this all very entertaining,” he leered.

“Just be quiet and keep your eyes focused forward,” Hana snapped with a scowl, her words only widening the Voyager’s indulgent smile.

When Gream’s ship began to edge into view, his face sobered. Jael’s plan to circumvent the vessel relied entirely on the element of surprise. If the Tarthacs suspected a trap, their unarmed shuttle wouldn’t stand a chance against the massive dreadnought. They were playing a dangerous game of chance, but fate was in their favor. Gream hadn’t been alerted to their presence, and the shuttle made it past the ship’s stern undetected.

“Okay, we’re on autopilot. Take off your harness, Hana. That dreadnought has a slow turning radius, but once we’re in its sights, Gream won’t hesitate to fire. We need to be gone long before then,” Tiberius instructed, removing his own restraint with deft fingers and rising to his feet.

“Where will we go?” she asked, sliding the straps away from her shoulders.

“There is a planet not far from here, Cophus, another way station for Voyagers. It will be remote enough for us to commence your training.”

“Bounty hunters won’t think to look for us there?” Hana questioned warily. She doubted that Tarthacs were the only creatures in the system interested in an easy payout.

“Not if they think you’re already dead,” he countered, hoisting a pack laden with provisions over his brawny shoulders. “Besides, Cophus is hardly a hospitable destination. Anyone brave enough to track our movements will have one hell of a time finding us.”

“Are there leeches?” Hana asked, only half in jest.

“There isn’t enough water to support aquatic life. But don’t get too excited. There are worse things than hagleeches,” Tiberius replied darkly, leaning forward to peer out the viewport towards Gream’s ship. “There! It’s starting to turn; they’ve spotted us.”

True to the Voyager’s word, the dreadnought was making a slow rotation. Soon, the mounted gun turret would be swiveled to face them, and the shuttle would be within firing range of Gream’s warheads.

“Put this on,” Tiberius commanded, handing Hana a visor shield. “The wind is brutal, and we’ll likely teleport right into a sandstorm. Take my hand, and whatever you do, don’t let go.”

She accepted it with a sharp nod, moving to latch the chin strap before lowering the visor. As she reached for the shield, Tiberius’s callused hand caught her own.

“It was meant for you,” the Voyager said suddenly, his hazy blue gaze settling on her own hazel with stormy intensity.

“Excuse me?” Hana blinked, lost to his meaning.

“The kiss, it was meant for you,” he repeated unflinchingly. “I thought you should know.” All she could do was gape as he lowered the visor over her surprised countenance.

“Warning: missile lock detected. You are on a trajectory for collision, please take immediate evasive action. Warning: missile lock detected. Initiating countdown. Twelve...eleven...ten...nine...” the autopilot began to chant.

“Well, there’s our cue.” Before Hana could utter a word, Tiberius had her tucked against his chest, a protective arm pinning her waist to his muscled torso. “Hold on tight,” he murmured in a husky voice as the air crackled around them.

“Six...five...four...”

She had no choice but to obey, clinging to the Voyager’s hardened form as space itself folded in around them with an electric charge. The sensation was the same as the day Hana had departed from Mala Fide. The universe was fraying from the inside out, and she had no idea what was waiting for them on the other side.

They passed through the void in the blink of an eye and were immediately engulfed by a tunnel of wind. Painful grains of sediment bit into Hana’s skin like shards of glass, and an unforgiving heat sucked the moisture from her skin.

She couldn’t hear Tiberius through the deafening roar, but he guided her forward with steady resolve, using his weight to buoy her against the merciless storm. By the time they made it to the cave, Hana was all but crawling through the knee-deep drifts of sand. Strong hands propelled her through the mouth of the cavern, and she collapsed on all fours, unbalanced by the sudden lack of resistance.

“You alright?” Tiberius asked, barreling in beside her. He rested his hands against his knees, panting beneath the cover of his visor.

“Fine,” she confirmed shakily, taking a moment to collect herself. “Is it always like that out there?”

“Cophus? Not always, only when storms blow in, which is frequently enough. It’s best to keep to the caves.”

Rifling through his pack, Tiberius pulled out a canteen and handed it to Hana. “Here, drink, it’s easy to become dehydrated here.

She took it gratefully, tilting the flask back to her chapped lips and swallowing down its contents as Tiberius looked on. Her cheeks flared with heat beneath his close scrutiny. There was an awkwardness between them that hadn’t been present before the Voyager’s unexpected admission.

“Thank you,” Hana said stiffly, handing him back the half-emptied canteen.

“Keep it. You’re going to need it,” he counseled, still observing her curiously. She squirmed self-consciously beneath his gaze and Tiberius cleared his throat. “How did you learn to speak the Tarthan tongue so fluidly? I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting that. It’s not an easy language to master.”

“Oh,” Hana said, taken aback by the sudden question, “I was an archivist on Astra Glacies, and something of a linguist. When I heard Gream speak, I realized that the Tarthan language was identical to that of the Trogir Warriors in my universe.”

“Well, that’s prophetic,” Tiberius muttered, more to himself than Hana.

“What is?”

“The more I come to know of you, the more similarities surface between our two universes. Within the multiverse there is repetition, but rarely to such an obvious extent. I’m beginning to suspect that there is more behind it all than a simple matter of chance,” the Voyager mused vaguely before falling into brooding silence.

For once, Hana left the man to his thoughts. After the day’s climactic events, she had her own reverie to keep. Rising to her feet, she peered into the tunneling black abyss at her back. It seemed to go on forever, and was unlike any of the subterranean burrows she’d seen on Astra Glacies. Most of those structures had been manmade, a desperate attempt to escape the planet’s unforgiving elements as the climate had changed from habitable to brutally uninhabitable.

The cave before her was strangely cylindrical, with a ribbing effect carved into its domed walls. It looked as though it had been excavated by some massive drill, but Hana doubted that Cophus had ever been stable enough to support intelligent life.

“Don’t wander,” Tiberius warned from behind her as he emptied out the contents of his rucksack.

“Is there something in here with us?” Hana whipped back with growing unrest. A breath of heat fanned her face, rising up from the darkness beyond. She let out a frightened gasp and stumbled backward, anticipating the emergence of some frightful beast.

“It’s alright,” Tiberius assured, walking briskly to her side. “These caves act as vents for the planet’s core. Heat rises upward, creating a breathing effect. There’s nothing down there. The temperature fluctuation is too extreme, and there are pockets of toxic gas the deeper you go. It’s best to remain as close to the planet's surface as possible.”

“Oh,” Hana replied sheepishly, her fingers rising to twine within the cropped curls at her nape.

“It’s starting to grow back,” Tiberius observed, garnering a sharp look from his companion, “your hair, I mean.”

“I guess it is,” she said with a weak smile. “I probably look a lot like my mom, now. She always kept hers like this.”

“You wear it well,” he rumbled in compliment before turning back to finish setting up camp.

Hana bit her lips to keep from smiling, silently scolding herself for the rush of excitement that flooded her chest. She didn’t know what to make of the Voyager’s sudden interest, but she’d been pining after him for so long, it was hard to ignore.

Her mind wandered to the night that Jael had found them together on the beach. Hana could still feel Tiberius’s body melded into her own, her back pinned to the sand as his erection pulsed against her with growing arousal. Did he find himself recalling that brief moment as often as she did? If he truly wished that they had never kissed, then why had he brought it back up on the shuttle?

“Are you hungry?” Tiberius called, leaving Hana to blush at her wayward thoughts. Her stomach rumbled loudly at the mention of food, and it occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten since their departure from Hausafan.

“I’m starving,” she admitted. “How are bodies kept alive in sim without being fed?”

“They’re held in stasis. After a person’s mind is put into sim, their body temperature is lowered until the metabolic rate drops off significantly,” he explained, tossing her a sealed packet of dehydrated food. “Open that up and pour some water on it.”

Hana twisted the cap off her canteen and sprinkled water on the pack's contents, wrinkling her nose at the brown sludge it created.

“I know it looks unsavory, but it’s actually not half bad,” Tiberius smirked, digging into his own packet with more zeal than Hana could muster. “Just pretend that it’s steak,” he added between mouthfuls.

“This is definitely not steak,” she grimaced, tilting back the pouch to her lips.

The thick sludge resembled something more of a briny stew. It wasn't entirely unpalatable, though the texture left much to be desired. Hana resolved to try and heat it the next time she was forced to swallow the meal down.

“You said that water is scarce on Cophus. Should we be rationing?” she asked, giving her empty canteen a shake.

“We have enough to sustain us for a few days. After that, we’ll need to head towards the mountains to collect more. Moisture evaporates quickly from the planet's surface. Most of it is collected as vapor in Cophus's atmosphere. The higher we go in altitude, the more liquid water we’ll find.” He picked up a jerry can from their stack of supplies and refilled the bottle's contents before handing it back to Hana.

“Will we be able to reach the mountains before another sandstorm hits?”

Tiberius nodded, “Yes, we’ll use the journey as a training exercise so you can start to get some understanding of your abilities. In the meantime, you should get some rest, Hana. It’s been a long day, and your body is still recovering from its time spent in sim. There’s no night on Cophus, only periods of dusk before the next star rises. Sleep while it’s still cool.”

Hana looked to the desert beyond. The raging storm had died away to mild gusts of wind, and the first of Cophus’s three stars was beginning to set. The air was still painfully dry, but the searing heat had begun to ebb.

With a nod to Tiberius, Hana rose to her feet. The rigors of the day were finally catching up to her, and the onslaught of adrenaline that had carried her since Gream’s arrival was draining away to exhaustion.

Unrolling her sleeping pallet, she lay down gingerly on top before turning to face the cave wall. It felt strange to sleep within the Voyager’s view, but it was too hot to cover herself within the bedroll. Daring a peek over her shoulder, Hana saw that Tiberius was sitting with his back to her, his attention focused solely on the blade he was honing to a deadly point.

A shiver of apprehension coursed down her spine.

“Don't get too excited. There are worse things than hagleeches,” Tiberius had warned her back on the shuttle. If that was indeed the case, then Hana hoped their stay on Cophus would be a short one.