Shalice glanced over at Sharonah, who appeared to be napping in the seat beside her. Now that they were out of the rainforest, the Captain didn't have to be so careful about the controls, so she let her mind drift back to the subject that seemed to be overriding everything else in her mind, lately – Taurvantion. She just couldn't get that insufferable … sexy … arrogant … gorgeous … maddening elf out of her thoughts.

 She wished she hadn't been so touchy about him accompanying them to the tribal village. Nothing was happening there, anyway. Now he was probably mad at her, and she might never see him again. That thought made her heart sink. The idea of not seeing Taurvantion, made unexpected tears spring to her eyes. She would have to apologize. There was probably no other way that he would agree to see her again. They were more than halfway back to the Peacock, when Sharonah suddenly jerked up straight in her seat, and gasped out instructions, while she held her hand to her chest, trying to collect herself, and control her frenzied breathing.

 “Back – we've got to go back – King – danger – purple – got to help!” Sharonah breathed heavily for a moment, then turned toward Shalice, her eyes wide in fear.

“We've got to go back to King Taurvantion's realm. He's in danger! He's walking on the canopy and the shape shifter is right beneath him in the form of an orchid. I can see a purple mist dissipating out of the trees, into the air around His Majesty. It hasn't got him yet, I don't think, but we have to go – now!”

Shalice turned the runabout around so fast, that if it hadn't had such strong stabilizers, it would have tipped over. As soon as the vehicle was straightened out, she called back to Kayne, in the seat behind her.

“Try to reach Taurvantion on his com link, Kayne. I think he still had it on when he left.”

Kayne didn't need the command, he was already right on it. His handsome face set in a deep frown as he listened to the static from the other end. He pressed the send button down hard, and shouted into the headset, hoping that his voice would get through.

“ SHAPE SHIFTER ALERT! SHAPE SHIFTER ALERT! PURPLE CLOUD!

He repeated the short message over and over, although the crackle of interference was still there. The shouting did actually help, because it distracted the shape shifter into pausing just for a second. Still, it was long enough for Taurvantion to notice it.

He jumped aside just as the cloud formed itself into a arrow, and lunged right at the Elven King's head!

RATE THIS CHAPTER!

Author guidance for This story

The glossary for this story listing the characters and personalities can be found here:

http://www.protagonize.com/story/the-bubble-glossary


This is my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel. Over 50,000 words written in 26 days.

It begins in the year 2175, just hours before the entire Earth explodes! The main character is Shalice Teirney, the captain of the Peacock, a colonizer class galaxy hopper that is visiting Earth Station One for supplies. Her passengers are leaving the war torn Earth to seek safer planets to colonize.

One of the groups of colonists are a band of the last Elves on Earth. They seek a more stable planet to build a new realm of Elves. Just as the Earth approaches its' fiery death, the Elves collectively perform an ancient spell that encloses the Peacock in a protective bubble.

The bubble also includes the place and location of the ancient spell, which is the Amazonian river basin of 1542. So the peacock is now inside the 1542 version of the amazon, which is inside a bubble. The bubble (with the Peacock inside it) goes through an astra void to the year 2010. The bubble is invisible to the people on earth, but the people in the bubble may leave it, with the chance that they can't return to the bubble.

The captain's goals are to return to her own time and space, but then she finds out that the seeds of the earth's destruction are planted in the year 2010. The people of the Peacock must stop the eventual destruction of the earth, by preventing its' beginning.

Here is some terminology I came up with for the general tone of the story.

Galaxy hopper: Star ship
Astra void : worm hole, tunnel in space
Slides : sliding doors
Portals : internal inset screens that receive the data from the exterior sensors
Scuttle : elevator
Vid : video data
Streaming vid feed : continuous action video
Com. link : A communications device with an ear bud to receive and a tiny tube extension to speak into.
Central command voice link : internal public address system
Entrance / exit portal: oval exterior doorway of the Amazon. It opened and closed through magic.
runabout: small airbourne vehicle. A flying version of the automobile.

This is a picture I plan to use as the book cover:

<img src="http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/Sharesy2/Bubble%20Profile/Bubbleprofile.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket" />

updated Dec 4 '11 by moonwalker