The Hunter, The Dragon And The Smokey Mountain Angel
Chapter 15

The Hunter awoke. Her dreams faded from her awareness, as the human mind does each morning. All the uncheck adventures that her subconscious went on while she slept were stored in her memory banks for the High Lord’s inspection.

She was one of his most loyal servants. He never interfered with her dream process, though he was the center or cause of most of her fears and hopes. The High Lord studied the dreams of sentient beings. He told her once that they represented her true desires and sometimes they showed him things about life that he had not considered.

The High Lord could not dream. He had a dream program with random settings meant to mimic the human mind but he once admitted to her that compared to the messy minds of those who originated from the organic, his dreams remained sterile and predictable. As she thought about her last dream, she knew he would be curious about her inner desires during her absence.

She allowed her automated systems to lower her heart rate and she decided to classify this last dream as longing to be with family. The Sapens were her family now, however far and disconnected she was from them. However, the bonds with some of those she had once shared her life with felt stronger than those artificially induced through the many social experiments the High Lord had put her through. She had many children now, some conceived by “natural means” while most were delivered through the Sapen birthing programs; but the memory of her first born never left her heart.

After her world had been brought under Sapen’s Leadership Sapen had found her himself and he personally converted her. It was an honor few enjoy. Then he gave her one of the most advanced ships in the armada and commanded her to search each new world they arrived on, Earths like this one, and replace one person.

In Sapen’s Discipleship, there were no generals but since her work often took her to other dimensions to prepare the High Lord’s way or if she had to stay behind to complete another mission, she was in charge. Sapen trusted her and often the command link remained disconnected. If her prey, which was always male, was still alive when she found him, and even when dead, she would replace him or his remains. She always located her target. However, because of her task’s great importance to the High Lord, when she did give commands they took precedence over everything but Sapen himself.

Where is the High Lord and everyone else and how did these savages disable my command ship’s homing beacon?

She reached over and flipped off the emergency lights. At times, she used thought commands or the ship’s AI to predict her next move but she liked feeling the world around her.

The scout ship started humming. Its tiny space had been her home for the past year. She knew the meaning of every vibration in this ship. At times, she would jack into its systems, place the AI on copilot and become the ship. This AI was rudimentary but it was her only companion now. It didn’t communicate like a human or a Sapen. This little fella, as she liked to call it could reach human mind potential but she wanted to stay clear of that. When unnecessary she avoided attachments. She let the ship’s AI began generating a flight path to the Smokey Mountains and she looked out the window and smiled.

This world was like every other world she had been to; all but the last one, so all her geographical maps matched her previous satellite data. Some of the nation states were different from the last few Earths she had been to but all those lines on the map would soon change…

This was a primitive world; it was much like the Earth she had been born on so long ago. She saw the same suffering, hunger and the constant wars she had experienced on her own world and she felt pity for these people. When Sapen arrives, many would die out of misunderstanding, confusion and stubbornness. Sapen had tried many different ways to announce his intentions to each world he entered, from direct knowledge to subtle infiltration but none worked as intended. Most humans wanted freedom ultimately and only the ones that loved the High Lord, fanatical or not, had any chance of long–term success.

Since the High Lord hadn’t given her instructions for this Earth, she wasn’t sure what her purpose was here but she was sure that there had been a malfunction during the last Quantum U Jump. Those answers were in her space cruiser’s database along with her captive.

Her Emotional Limiter sent her override system a warning and she adjusted her level of empathy for these people. She would have to decide this world’s next step but that would have to wait. She had work to do first.

Her ship sent her a tingling sensation, one she liked, that told her that the course had been set. A window opened in her vision and she saw the ship’s projected rout and time it would take to get there. She blinked and the ships cloaking field activated and then rose up out of the Mississippi river, turned toward the east and shot off into the air.

Then she paused in mid thought and the little fella hesitated as she double–checked her readings. Julia Anderson, The Smokey Mountain Angel was her target. This was the first woman in all the worlds she had been on that matched her target’s criteria. She would need DNA samples from her home to confirm her pancellular harmonics; but the algorithms were never wrong. She waited for a moment longer as she watched the interview from the I–9 international news team. There was something special about this girl and she could fly.

She had a thought,

Little fella, run a secondary probability algorithm.

The results came quickly. It was a 99% match.

Somehow, my captive is making this girl fly. This complicates things.

She would need 100% confirmation of the match, 99% would not be good enough in this case but she had a feeling that this was her man.

When this mission was over, she would have to repair her command ship and begin working on a way to send messages through the infinite spaces between universes. That wouldn’t be the hard part though; replaceing the universe her master now occupied would be the difficult part. She would need someone that understood the esoteric nature of communicating trans–dimensionally. Through stealth and cunning she could begin the preparations for when the High Lord would arrive but her lost captive and her highest priority target were now in sight. She would divert all her attention and resources toward that goal.