By and copyright of Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photo copyright Owen Quinn. Drawn by Stephen Mooney
They say there is nothing like a woman scorned and that every hero needs their very own Moriarty. For Xereban scientist Varran in the Time Warriors, his combines both these traits.
Sandara Vendris is a woman on a mission; to destroy Varran and everything he stands for by making Earth the new Xereba. Humanity would be servants to her cause as all Xerebans could finally stand proud on the soil of their new home instead of living in secret chained by the mundane rat race of humanity. She along with Varran, is the only original survivor from the day Xereba was destroyed in the temporal explosion.
Using the chameleon net technology aboard the Juggernaut she hid her true identity. Her shield was that of a man while she plotted her revenge on Varran. However their sudden arrival on Earth changed all that and she slipped into human society easily intent on using this new platform to fulfill her plans. Her first task was to establish a power base and seek out Xerebans that shared her view of the future. This began in Victorian London where she went under the guise of Dr Wainwright. Tere she continued her research into genetics by taking over an asylum and using the inmates some of which were children.
Humans are beneath her purview but she uses and manipulates them to suit her purposes. When she meets Michael and Tyran Sandara realises Varran is close and teams up with them to get close and kill him. However she soon discovers they are from the future. Familiar with his work in temporal mechanics, she realises that she cannot kill him now as the timelines would collapse. She steals some of his DNA to help her age slower so she can face him in a hundred years time. But dimensional beings called the Weavers form an alliance with her in a deal that will allow her to survive until she can take down Varran.
Vendris is behind the jellyfish mutants on Farron Island and the teenagers implanted with chips to enhance their mental abilities. In Tempest their timelines finally cross allowing her to make her move.
We discover she has been keeping tabs on Jacke, Michael and Tyran as they grew up and has built a secret base in the Australian outback called Area 52 with the fortune she has accumulated over the years from property investments back in Victorian London and beyond. In 1947 she learned of the alien crash in Roswell and struck a deal with American government to allow her to contact the surviving Greys. They form an alliance in which she believes they will help her alongside the Weavers to build a temporal machine that will help her bring back someone very important to her and the bane of Varran’s existence.
She believes she will not fail as Varran has no idea she or the group she has formed, the Family are waiting like predators in the shadows. The greatest enemy is the one you don’t know exists.
She is a master strategist hampered by her belief in her own superiority. As I said earlier she considers humans beneath her yet her right hand man is a human called simply Mr Ling. She rescued him from the streets as a boy when he saved her from being assassinated. Unable to believe it, she vowed to take him under her wing and he has remained loyal ever since. Such is their devotion to each other that Ling allows his pregnant girlfriend Sharon to sleep with Tyran’s brother Robert letting him believe their baby is actually his. With this viper secred in the nest, Sandara launches her attack on the families of the Time Warriors. This forces Varran to bring them all aboard the Juggernaut for safety including Sharon. She records and sends the elusive teleport frequency allowing Sandara to take control of the space station built by her former lover General Solos.
We learn that she and Varran met years ago at a conference but she passed herself off as a school teacher so as to not alert him to her connection with Solos, Varran’s enemy. He had been incorporating Varran’s temporal machinery into the Juggernaut systems against Varran’s wishes. This forced Varran underground to protect his work. However on the day he was about to send himself through time, Solos’ men broke in and a stray bullet set off the lethal temporal explosion. Sandara was already aboad the Juggernaut. With the new temporal manipulator she brings Solos back to reign as the Emperor and Empress of new Xereba.
No one knew she was pregnant with Solos’s child which she losf. Her grief fuels her hatred of Varran blaming him solely for the shattering of her dreams of family life. Little does she know the Greys have been plotting behind her back and are going to use the manipulator to open a dimensional rift and finish their original mission; to merge their world with Earth to prevent their species’ extinction. She and Varran discover that Solos has been infected by an alien parasite queen and if Xereba had not been destroyed every citizen would have fallen to the swarm.
But Varran has been aware of the Family’s existence and set his own trap, defeating her, the Greys and destroying Area 52 scattering the Family all across the planet. Ling is killed but when Sandara escapes she takes his hand. Such is her genius with cloning and genetics, Ling is restored to full health by The Return. This speaks volumes of the connection between the two that she will not let death take him from her.
We meet her, Ling and Sharon in The Return when Sharon contacts the Warriors to ask for their help. Sandara has no idea who she is and thinks she is the Mayor of the small town of Gaston in America. Wary of a trap, the Warriors are caught in a plot by an old enemy. This time, Varran lets her go as he is in no position to capture her.
When Jacke and Michael are thrown into a future where the secret existence of the Xerebans have been discovered and imprisoned in camps, they are captured by a resistance group led by Sandara. They must collaborate to put history back on track but the humans having stripped the crashed Juggernaut of all tech, have summoned an alien race with a vested interest in not only the Xerebans but humanity too.
There is no doubt Sandara is a woman that knows what she wants and will make a deal with the Devil in order to make things happen. But she is still out there and the Warriors will discover her tracks still echo loudly through history.
As always stay tuned.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 