By and copyright of Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Join the Time Warriors in this second exciting volume as the race against their enemies intensifies. The Family are revealed in the most unexpected place, Michael faces an impossible choice trapped in the 24th century, an old enemy returns, Tyran is lost on a planet of robots with a hidden agenda while a dark secret from Jacke’s past may be the only hope for an alien race. And in the distant past a new enemy emerges as the fight is on with Jack the Ripper. Remember, everything happens for a reason.
The luxury space cruiser, the Adelphi, was part of an exclusive fleet that operated to similar guides to ocean liners and toured collapsing stars, the black hole of Hades, the Solack Empire where six worlds were literally bolted together in a feat of mind blowing engineering and the breeding asteroid fields of the Klafe, giant alien creatures that lived in space like whales and bred in an electrical field that they fed on.
It had seemed perfect, beam aboard having hacked into the main frame computer to register Michael as a logged in passenger and take it easy for a while.
It also gave Varran a chance to gain a bit of information about the future. Of course there were rules. No mention of whom he really was or when he came from. No direct involvement in local affairs and no attempts to find any reference to Xereban in human society. Varran didn’t mind any of them visiting the future but he didn’t want to know anything about what might happen to them.
Perhaps they would one day become open, fully fledged members of Earth society, or maybe not. Maybe something happened and Varran had taken the decision for them to leave Earth in the Juggernaught or maybe not.
The future, he had lectured Michael, was a house of cards. If you knew one of those cards told you how and when you would die, you had to leave it in place and walk away. If you fell to temptation and gained that knowledge, you would be tempted to change that outcome and cause the house to fall. But to Michael, there was a fear Varran was hiding behind his reasoning. Could he be afraid of finding he was still alive and the rest of them long gone?
Everything happens for a reason. It was Varran’s reason for going on and a deeply rooted belief for Xerebans. So far, it had stood him well.
So, Michael had done exactly that and yet he still ended up alone in a ship that had carried over three thousand passengers.
He stepped out of the shower and grabbed the mint green towel hanging on the rail. As he dried himself off, he remembered a time when he had been afraid to stand naked in public, either at school after gym or at the local leisure centre. It was when puberty had been this scary thing which was only happening to him and everyone else was hung like horses and built like tanks.
He had no reason to feel like that. He realised how trivial it was now. He was quite proud of his hairy chest and knew there was a lean mean sex machine underneath this fluctuating exterior.
He hoped.
He could laugh to himself now but his fear had once given the bullies yet another weapon making him withdraw even more.
Still, they were all dead now, hundreds of years ago and he was a man now who had no inhibitions, not the orphan boy with no back up and terrified of going to school. He recalled the mornings he pretended to be sick just to avoid going there. The dark dread of being there when his gran didn’t believe him and the constant looking over his shoulder when he was there.
He had grown restless after his O levels, a feeling that he didn’t belong at school and there was something else he should be doing. It was like you had lost something but didn’t know quite what it was you had to find to fill the void.
Of course, he never in a million years thought fighting alien threats and time travel was what he was missing from his life but what the hell. He had been given a unique opportunity and he had grabbed it with both hands. It made him feel complete almost; that all the bullying and isolation had been worth it. Yeah, keep telling yourself that, a little voice whispered at the back of his mind.
If there had been one thing he’d learned in his life, it was that it could change in an instant. The fact that he’d discovered he was descended from survivors from a dead planet actually hadn’t been that mind blowing. It was like being told your great grandfather had been from Estonia. It was interesting but didn’t feel like it had any real impact on his life. Bills still had to be paid, he still had to go to work, debt collectors came to the door and his love life was pretty crap.
Chatting up girls had never been his strong point, all thanks to the bullies destroying his self-confidence, almost making him believe his own worthlessness. Worse still, he had fallen for the wrong girl the first time round, spending all his time as her friend and desperately hoping she would love him as much as he loved her. And it was true what they said. Bullying affects you for the rest of your life and in his case, Michael faced most of it on his own, withdrawing into a world of movies, books and a concrete coat of shyness
The Time Warriors and Beyond 