Lost in Time

Volume 5 Part 1: Queen's Castle

Vol 5 Part 1: Queen's Castle

She's gonna die.

What do we do!

Commander! What do we do!

Nia's mind was on a rollercoaster, rocking in undulating limps and lurches about the erratic hinge of her sanity. She was lost in the chaotic howl of her thought. The tumultuous tumble that raged through her filled her ears with crashing sounds. Unreal. Uncanny. But unrelenting.

She had no idea what to do. The Federation had tossed her into the deep end of a wild whirlpool, in the midst of a ferocious flood. And she wasn't just sinking.

She was drowning.

She was curled up against the bark of the apple tree where she'd found the ghost apple. Snuggled up in her own embrace, she hugged her knees. Her face was buried in her lap as she rocked back and forth in restiveness and mental freeze. What was she to do? She could be a shrewd tactician. A gallant warrior of unmatched mettle. But she wasn't prepared for a mission on fairytales and fables come true.

"Commander, damn it!" Zulu's vociferous rasp hit her eardrums again. It reached her like the howl of a waterfall from a valley below. She'd been prowling about, Zulu. Taking Yilda's pulse by the wrist, peeling back her eyelids to check her pupils, and raining some more hellfire on her frozen commander.

"I need you to snap out of it Commander. You're the fiercest warrior I know. So I'm gonna need you to snap the hell out of whatever episode of I want my mommy this is and get back on your feet." She squeezed Nia an austere look. "Yilda needs you. I need you, Commander." She finally added, her voice lowered a few decibels, smooth and soothing, almost ardent.

As sudden as a gale of whirlwind, Nia shot to her feet. Zulu cut her an uncertain look. She hightailed past the stunned navigator, heading straight for the dying linguist lying on the carpet of dry leaves. She grabbed her right arm and checked her palm. She peeled back the long sleeve of her aureate spandex top tinged with mottles of blue stars. She dropped it, then checked her left arm.

"Commander, what are you doing?" Zulu edged closer to the seemingly deranged woman. Had a screw come undone somewhere in the intricate wiring of her head or something? If shove came to push, Zulu would rather have a frozen Commanding officer than an unhinged maniac.

"There!" Nia pointed to Yilda's lower arm, fervor staining the edges of her voice. Zulu crouched beside Yilda's still body. Her skin was pale as snow now. She was literally turning ashen. She squinted her eyes, focusing on the arm of the linguist. True enough, there was something bizarre on there.

Written in a faint crimson marker, running up Yilda's arm, were three words. Beseech the empress. That was all. A couple of red marks besmirched her flawless skin, snippets of red paint fading on her fingernails.

Zulu sighed.

"What does that even mean?" She asked, whipping her arms up and dropping them resignedly.

"I think she tried to tell us how to get in without having to say a word." Nia observed, standing straight.

"Yeah..." Zulu nodded in agreement, something clicking into place in her temporal lobe. "Her neural interface is sending signals to the Galactic Planners Committee in real time. She couldn't say too much or she'd compromise herself." She explained.

"That makes me wonder why they don't want us knowing how to get in." Nia said as she prowled about, index curled against her fleshy lips in thought.

"Perhaps they don't, the GMC. Maybe they don't know how to get in. But she does." Zulu supplied an idea, pointing at Yilda.