The Children of Time (The Children of Time Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  He removed Radof’s glasses and he assumed his normal appearance.

  “Thanks, Merko. For a moment I thought it would be my end.”

  “That’s what friends are for. Crom, take the material to the princess’ room immediately. Tibor, arrest this man. After the end of the surgical procedures, I’ll settle up the score with Counselor Mirov.”

  ***

  Mirov was afflicted and walked from one side to the other.

  “Why is my incompetent servant taking so long? He’s not even informing me the facts.”

  Mirov decided to contact Merko to try to get some information.

  “Commander Merko, is everything going well in the earthling’s surgery?”

  “Yes sir, Counselor Mirov. In a while, I’ll personally explain the details of the operation for you. Wait for me.”

  “I’ll call the captain of the royal guard, Fizard. He’s also in my team. I promised him the post of commander of planetary troops when I’m the new monarch, and now I need to ask for his support.” Mirov thought.

  “Captain, something happened to my servant, Radof, because he doesn’t communicate with me.” Mirov told captain Fizard. “I want you to discover and report to me how things are in the hospital. Don’t forget that you will be my commander when I’m the new king.”

  “If something goes wrong with the original plan, I’ll try to harm the girl’s recovery after surgery. Maybe a poison... I need to find an alternative.” Mirov thought.

  ***

  Meanwhile, Zara was worried in one of the waiting rooms of the hospital. She tried to communicate with everyone, but they asked her to wait, because they were committed to preserve the safety of Nicolas and the Princess.

  Sivoc didn’t want her to be bored because of her pregnancy and wanted her to wait until the end of surgery.

  “I do not understand why so many secrets. Is something serious happening? But Sivoc knows what he does. I’ll keep waiting for more information. I must remain calm!” She thought, as she tried to keep her emotions under control.

  – XVIII. Mirov’s Escape –

  Once again, Drako had recorded the entire conversation with his robot-bird. The evidence against Mirov began to accumulate.

  “Commander Sivoc, we managed to intercept another communication between Mirov and captain Fizard. They are planning to harm the princess and take the power. I have the recordings here with me.” Drako said.

  “Thank you, Drako. Great work. I knew that Counselor Mirov had someone else collaborating with his plan. Fizard? I believed he was a good man, but I see he’s ambitious.”

  Sivoc immediately delivered the recording to Counselor Kenan and they took it to the king Zador II.

  “How can it be? I know Mirov for so many years and believed in his loyalty. Now I understand that the suggestion to send a second ship for the mission was part of his interest in harming the success of the surgery. He wanted to, somehow, intervene with dark purposes.”

  “Yes, your majesty. His will to take power and harm the princess was the heart of all the confusion created on planet Earth and orchestrated by the Counselor Mirov.”

  The king, furious, ordered to arrest Mirov and the captain Fizard, who had prepared an escape if the counselor was arrested.

  ***

  A friend of Radof, Croiff, who worked in the royal service, heard the conversation between the king and the Counselor Kenan, so he knew about the order to arrest Counselor Mirov and the captain Fizard. He immediately warned them. Without hesitating, Mirov used one of the secret exits of the palace to try to escape.

  Beneath the floor of the royal file room, there was a trap door where a staircase led to a tunnel that trespassed the entire palace and the capital, and led to a forest on the north side of the planet. Mirov found the escape route as a kid and used to play hide and seek with the brothers of the king Zador II. There was a picture on the wall with a portrait of the father of King Zador II, King Zador I, and the button that opened the trapdoor was located in his right eye.

  The place where he arrived was called Mutant Forest, because the plants, trees and animals that lived there suffered mutations that turned them into murderous vegetation. All the results of genetic experiments, which were unsuccessful, were sent there, because it was not allowed to kill living beings on the planet, even if they were consequences of such experiences.

  Few people managed to escape from this place.

  “It was very easy to escape. Few people know this escape route.” Mirov thought. “This forest is very dangerous. I have to be careful. But what about the captain Fizard? Where is he? I need get in touch with him to take me to a safer place.”

  Suddenly, a dark shadow covered him and he looked above, terrified. A teleporting red ray hit him and when he noticed, he was inside a cell in Merko’s ship.

  “Where did you intend to go, sir?” Asked the commander. “You came to the place where I like to train my soldiers: the Mutant Forest. I know all the palace’s routes of escape and put my men to search for you in all of them as soon as I learned about your escape. Consider yourself a prisoner of the King Zador II. You’ll be judged for betrayal and will certainly rot in prison.”

  “You, Merko, work for me and has no right to arrest me.”

  “Mr. Mirov, I must warn you that from now on you lost your job as counselor. Consider yourself arrested by the royal guard. You and your servant, Radof, will be imprisoned in the building of the Penitentiary of Custody and Rehabilitation. I believe you already know it, but just to remind you that the cells are protected with laser beams and it’s impossible to escape. You’ll pay, Mirov, for having conspired against the king Zador II.”

  ***

  Captain Fizard, saw movement in the royal palace, and fled as far as possible, helped by some military friends.

  He intended to stay hidden until things settle down in the kingdom of Zador II. For this, he gathered some men he trusted and decided to create a small army of renegades within the Mutant Forest, in Sector 13. Merko himself had trained them and he knew very well the ways to survive in that jungle.

  Captain Fizard and his men reached the desired point within the Mutant Forest with his escape ship. Bionic robots, half human and half machine looked above seeing the arrival of the new residents who fled and rushed to attack them.

  “Captain, I see some points moving in our pursuit in the holographic radar.” He warned the pilot of the ship to escape. “Will it be Merko and his men?”

  “I don’t believe so, certainly they are still working on the capture of Counselor Mirov. He is the primary target. Analyze the coordinates of the objects that are in motion and show me in the main screen.”

  Fizard could see five killers’ beings pursuing their ship. He focused them and realized they were monstrous.

  One of them jumped up and grabbed the ship, destabilizing it.

  “Prepare the ship’s shield of protection and create a field of sound waves to drive them away.” Ordered the captain to Dargan, a soldier trained by Merko who has joined the fugitive.

  Once the field of sound waves was turned on, the creature fell off the ship putting its hands over its ears, trying to protect itself from the deafening vibrations.

  “Lord, can I eliminate them with the laser beams of the ship?” Asked Dargan.

  “It won’t be necessary. The vibratory sound field is enough. They’ll take long time to recover. Maybe they can be useful in the future.”

  Deep in the forest, there was a military base built underneath the ground, with three floors, which was abandoned. There, the captain Fizard and seven trained soldiers who had fled with him were settled. They were waiting for an opportunity to return to their families. For now, they needed to wait. What mattered now was survival.

  ***

  When Merko returned from his mission, Sivoc came to him and asked:

  “Merko, did you managed to capture Captain Fizard or have any clue that may lead us to him?”

  “No, Sivoc. Probably he and his c
ronies fled to the worst part of the Mutant Forest, where I trained them. We can’t find them, because I was the one who taught them to survive and hide in that barren place. However, we can consider that the fugitives are already stuck where they are. It is not easy to survive there and they’ll go through some bad times. We can go after them when everything is calmer here. Now we need to focus on the main purpose, which is to save the princess.”

  “Let’s check if everything went well with Nicolas and Isadora.”

  “No doubt. I have many reasons for wanting them both to be well.” Answered Merko following Sivoc to Nicolas’ room.

  – XIX. The Success of the Surgery –

  After a few weeks, the Princess Isadora began to regain her health, and the doctors protected her from any contact, until her immune system was fully restored. It seemed that the surgery had been a success and that the princess was safe.

  Nicolas also recovered from his surgery, and Zara went to visit him in the hospital.

  When she entered his room, Zara asked the nurses to leave them alone. As she was a doctor, they all agreed. There were still a few guards in the corridor to protect him and fulfill the promise of the King to get him safely to Earth. Mirov and Radof have been arrested, but the captain Fizard was still missing and was considered a threat. Although he was a bit weak, he touched Zara’s face. She approached and kissed him.

  “How’s the princess?” He asked. “Did we succeed?”

  “Yes. Thanks to you, she is safe and sound. Thank you, my dear, for coming here to do good for a girl you didn’t know.”

  “I’m very glad that everything went well. I’d do it for anyone, especially for a sick girl and to attend your request. What about our daughter? Is she okay? And you?”

  “We’re good. I decided to take you personally to Earth. After arriving there, I’ll find an excuse for us to be together forever. I’ll say goodbye to my relatives here on planet Vida, but I want to come back some day to visit them. Our daughter will be born on your planet. If she is born here, they’ll find out that you are the father and I’ll be punished. Counselor Kenan will help us because he planned everything and knew the risks. My belly still can’t be seen and I gained a little weight to disguise. Did you notice?”

  She turned aside so Nicolas could look at her. He examined her completely and said:

  “I love you anyway. You are the most beautiful mother of this planet and of the Earth. I’ll take care of you every day and I’ll be a great dad. I promise!”

  His life made sense now, and the passion for Zara added to his parental love filled his heart.

  ***

  After another week, they were greeted at the Royal Palace with a feast provided by the king and his daughter. Zador II was happy with the recovery of Isadora and could make plans to his reign and his daughter’s again.

  Merko met Nicolas at the party:

  “Young earthling, how are you? You recovered very well from surgery, as I see.”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Commander. The surgery was a success and it wasn’t necessary to kidnap me from Sivoc’s team. Besides, they are far more polite than you.” Nicolas replied, still angry at Merko’s methods.

  “I’m sorry, young man. I have this military way of being and I will try to improve my attitude. I hope you forgive me.” He replied.

  “What about the people you killed in your missions? Will you also apologize to their families?” Nicolas asked.

  “In war, it is “do or die”. I am trained for defense and attack, but I’m retiring. You don’t need to worry about it. But... I need to tell you a secret.”

  “A secret?” Nicolas was quite curious. “You can talk, sir. I’m listening.”

  “I met your mother, Lorena, during one of my missions on Earth and we had a relationship during this period. This happened 23 years ago. And...”

  “What are you trying to say with this? You look nervous.” Nicolas interrupted.

  “I am your father. Ok, I said!”

  The two became silent for a moment, and the boy simply didn’t believe. “That’s impossible.” He thought.

  “Your lymphocytes X are the result of the interbreeding of our genes.” Merko began to explain. “There was a recombination between the future and the past. Your chain of DNA is the same as mine. I discovered it during his surgery, because I know very well my chromosomal strain of defense cells and, when I saw them in the holography, I could be sure that it’s identical to yours.”

  “I...” The earthling was speechless before such revelation.

  “This also explains the telekinesis. I saw personally when you used your power in my ship, Nicolas. Let me take you to a place on the planet Vida where I can show you something very interesting.”

  Merko held Nicolas’ watch with his left hand, and with the right he synchronized the teleport with his own watch.

  “You press the button of your watch, son. Can I call you like this?”

  It still sounded a bit strange to Nicolas to hear Merko calling him this way. He didn’t answer the question, but pressed the button curious. Then, father and son reached a distant place from the capital. Nicolas looked around and there was nobody there, only a forest with few trees and plants. Merko climbed next to a mountain.

  The boy was worried and didn’t know what to expect from that man who seemed to be mysterious; whose reputation and past actions didn’t make him reliable. Then, Merko raised his hands slightly pointing to the sky and pulled the cosmic energy, directing it to the mountain.

  Nicolas was amazed watching a ray of blue colorcast by his father, who blew up a portion of the top of the mountain with more than one meter of diameter with tremendous force. Witnessing Merko’s power, the boy could feel that all the things said about the commander were true.

  “Did you understand what the telekinetic energy is and why you own it? We can control the cosmic energy, move objects and control the gravitational fields around them. I’ll teach you to use this strength and dominate it.” Merko said, approaching to Nicolas. “Can I give you a hug, son? As a father...”

  “No problem, although I feel confused about it. I thought my father was...”

  Merko and the earthling hugged each other for a few minutes in a deep and touching silence.

  The father felt a new emotion, a feeling of having done something good in his life, and Nicolas felt protected by a strong father and a figure he had never known. Merko omitted the circumstances of how he met Lorena, because Nicolas would never understand his means to achieve the objectives of the mission.

  “I’d like to see your mother again. I’ve never felt something so true for a person as I felt for her.”

  “She lives with my sister. But I don’t think she’ll be interested in you, especially after so many years. And you are an alien!” Nicolas answered.

  “We’ll see. You know I can turn myself into the earthling I want. About being alien, you know I’m a human from the future and you’re also a hybrid of a human from the past with one from the future, I mean, you are also half alien. But it seems to me that I have a jealous son.”

  Merko and Nicolas became good friends, and when he knew about Nicolas’ return to the planet Earth with Zara, he decided to help, escorting them. However, what he really wanted was to see Lorena again and remember the best moments with a woman in his life. He also wanted to stay on the planet Earth, conquer the woman of his life and try to be happy with her.

  ***

  On the day of Nicolas’ departure, again the king insisted on having a party in tribute to their heroes. Merko and Zara, as a request of Kenan, were chosen to escort the earthling back to Earth. The palace was adorned with the most beautiful flowers of the season, and the guests came from the uttermost parts of the planet Vida. The food was plentiful and tasty, prepared by the great masters of the royal cooking. Princess Isadora was smiling and happy to have her health back and to live like a normal child. She was very grateful to the earthling who had given her what was most precious in her life:
health.

  The king Zador II gifted Nicolas with a ring of communication by high power radio, so he could ask for help if he ever needed. A channel would be opened so they could talk and they’d be able keep their friendship. Nobody imagined that Merko and Zara were planning to stay there and live as ordinary human beings.

  However, Sivoc, Tibor and Drako suspected that maybe they’d never see them again. It was a good chance for the two extraterrestrial beings to travel and remain on the planet that once had belonged to their ancestors.

  Sivoc, instead of communicating the fact to the Council, preferred to keep the secret with his team, in which he really trusted. When he returned to Earth, in any other mission, if possible, he certainly would visit them, for old times’ sake.

  Everyone on the planet treated them as heroes for saving the life of Princess Isadora.

  After the party, they said goodbye. Sivoc, Drako and Tibor hugged Zara and Nicolas for a long time. The doctor cried and told everyone that she would miss the missions that her team performed on other planets.

  Nicolas thanked his new friends for the protection on the planet Earth and also on planet Vida, during his surgery. Tibor approached Merko, shook his hand and said:

  “Take good care of the earthling and Zara. Maybe one day we’ll visit you on your new planet. We are always here if you need some help.”

  “I’d like to execute some mission by your side, Tibor. Everyone always told me a lot of good things about you, and certainly we would succeed if we work together. But now I’m retiring to take care of my new family. Don’t worry! You have a friend now.”

  Merko shook hands with Sivoc and Drako. The king and the princess thanked Nicolas again for his help. Kenan took Nicolas’ and Zara’s hands and blessed them, saying: