“What do you mean the probe didn’t come back?” Taylor asked, her tone showing she was really worried.

“We lost all contact with it when it was a few hundred miles from the anomaly,” Burke said.

“Were its communications cut off, or was the whole probe destroyed?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “There’s no concrete data for me to go with. So far the only data I have is regarding the intensity and range of the signal, which seems quite impressive to be honest. It isn’t exactly a powerful signal, but it just seems abnormal.”

“We’ll go take a look at it,” Q said.

Carlos sighed. “Burke, I specifically told you not to make this seem interesting.”

“Oh,” he smiled sheepishly. “Sorry?”

Carlos looked at Q, “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “And before you say anything, Taylor, you’re not going either.”

“What? Why?!” both of them protested.

“You’re both sorcerers now,” Carlos said sternly. “You’re high profile warriors not for just Aliea but for a vast majority of almost everyone else.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Q complained

“Easy for you to say. You won’t be the one who’ll have

to release a statement saying ‘Sorcerer and Sorceress mysteriously disappear’ or ‘Sorcerer and Sorceress injured severely.”

“We won’t disappear,” Q said.

“Or die,” Taylor added.

“I’m pretty sure that’s how all bad ideas start,” Burke said, adjusting his goggles back onto his head.

Taylor smiled, “I sure don’t want to be hearing about bad ideas from a guy who exploded his baking soda volcano.”

“I make perfectly fine baking soda volcanos!” he complained.

Carlos tapped the table with his fingers. “One more unnecessary comment or joke and I’ll have all three of you leave the council room.”

“Well, technically, I’m not even in the council room because-” Burke stopped when Carlos glared at him. “Sorry,” he said meekly.

“Thank you,” Carlos turned back to Q and Taylor. “You both are sorcerers. We can’t afford to send you out.”

“Carlos,” Taylor said. “If this anomaly is deadly enough that even two sorcerers can’t survive it, don’t you think it would have done more than shut down a force field?”

Carlos sighed. His fingers tapped the table impatiently. Taylor could tell he knew she was right, but she could also tell that he really didn’t want to admit it.

“We’ll be back even before you know it,” Q said.

“It may actually prove helpful, Carlos,” Burke said. “We  

have a second probe ready for launch, but it will be much more beneficial if we have a manned mission backing it up.”

Carlos remained silent for a few moments. “Fine,” he finally mumbled. “Just get the data and come back as soon as you can.”

Taylor smiled, “We’ll be back before you even know it.”

***

Q sympathized with his brother. He knew exactly what Carlos was worried about. All his anxiety was basically because of the different power classes that were commonly used.

The major two classes were the warriors and the mages. The difference between the two was the amount of life energy each one possessed. Life energy was this inert energy, or power, that each person was born with. Its usefulness lay in the fact that it could be used to manipulate different kinds of objects and give birth to something called Wave-skills. Each wave-skill pertained to a certain Elementa, like the Elementa of Wind, or the Elementa of Fire.

The Warrior class was born with low life energy, which meant that at the most they could only use very basic wave skills from any one Elementa.

Mages, on the the other hand, had very high levels of life energy and could pull of complex wave skills in two

completely different Elementa. People very rarely entered the Mage class though. Only a handful of mages actually existed.

Q was neither a Warrior nor a Mage. He was a Sorcerer, a class that was much more advanced than any other. He had such great power that he could manipulate an array of Elementa, including the hardest Elementa there was - the Elementa of Light. Taylor was actually a Sorcerer too - well technically, she was a Sorceress - and she manipulated the Elementa of Darkness.

Q and Taylor had both been successful on all of their missions. Together they had become a team even the most powerful military factions looked to when they were in trouble.

It was quite obvious why Carlos wouldn’t want to take any risks with the two of them. Q completely understood his brother’s actions, but that didn’t mean he endorsed them. To be honest, he felt like Carlos was slowly infringing on his freedom. This Sorcerer thing had turned him and Taylor into some sort of space celebrities, and that meant they weren’t allowed to do things that they would have done before.

“Well, that went quite well didn’t it?” Taylor chuckled as the door to the council room closed behind them.

“I guess,” Q said, “How exactly do we get to the anomaly though?”

“Weren’t you listening?” she playfully jabbed his

shoulder. “Kai has a ship all ready for us. Burke said he’ll have the probe loaded onto it before we get there.”

“Cool,” he smiled. It was always satisfying to see how quickly people could work. They had just finished talking to Carlos a few moments ago, and their mission was just a few minutes away from launch.

The thought of the launch energized Q. His nerves felt invigorated, and his mind was racing away. His body screamed out in excitement. This was the first time in a while that he was going on a mission this interesting.

He couldn’t wait.

***

Taylor made her way into the spacecraft’s main deck. It was a small silver-grey room, made for just two pilots. Two chairs stood towards the front of the room, right behind the dashboard filled with controls and dials. A large glass panel was installed above the dashboard - their only way of looking at anything outside the ship.

“This spacecraft looks good,” Q said as he entered the deck. “Kai did a great job.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “This is probably like the hundredth ship he’s made completely from scratch.”

“Well, he does really like custom builds.”

“By the way, what did he name this ship?”

The comm system turned on, “Spacecraft Endeavor, this is Control,” a voice popped through. “Perform your

maintenance check.”

“Roger that,” Taylor said and hurriedly took her seat on the pilot’s chair. Q sat beside her and helped check the ship’s controls.

Spacecraft Endeavor huh? Taylor thought. Kai was usually quite bad at coming up with ship names, highlighted by the fact that Aliea’s two most powerful custom-built warships were called ‘Ice-cream’ and ‘Cookie’.

“Everything seems fine, Control,” Q said.

“Same here,” she said. “All systems are in perfect condition.”

“Roger, Endeavor. You are clear for take-off,” the voice said. “Oh, and Kai wanted us to tell you not to scratch the ship.”

Taylor couldn’t help but smile, “Understood,” she said.

“He’s such an idiot,” Q chuckled.

Taylor calmed her mind and grasped the controls. She steadied her hands and started the ship’s engines. A loud hum resonated through the metal walls. She pulled back on the controls and the ship surged off the ground.

“And we have lift-off!” she grinned.

The trip off Zygrade and into space was actually less troublesome than Taylor imagined. But that was mainly because the force field had turned off.

Usually, the control center had to specifically shut down certain sections of the force field to open up a

small path for a ship to travel through. That didn’t take too long, but there was still a difference between waiting around for a few seconds, and surging straight off the ground and into space.

Soon darkness and points of light occupied Taylor’s vision. She couldn’t help thinking about her home planet, Earth. It had been months since she had permanently moved off of it, which apparently meant it was the perfect time to sit and reminisce about it. Her mind eased her into feeling sleepy and she soon gave into it. She worked the Endeavor’s controls and turned on the autopilot system.

Q had fallen asleep already, and lay calmly in the chair beside her. Taylor looked at him. She longed to look into those silver-grey eyes of his, to get lost within their mystic shade. Her hand reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. She touched his face, the warmth from his skin embracing hers.

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, “Goodnight, Q,” she smiled.

Taylor lay her head on the dashboard, her heart quivering with every passing moment. But even with all the excitement, her mind drugged her with drowsiness. The infinite stars around her all turned deep black as she closed her eyes and gave into her mind’s will to sleep.

***