Chapter 1: A Case of Mistaken Identity

The day was sunny, traffic was light, people of all races were walking along the sidewalk besides the fast moving a-grav sleds. It was a normal, peaceful afternoon.

Who'd have thought?

"Excuse me Miss, are you Ms J. Las Ran Tag?" asked the larger of the two Humans walking toward me.

"Yes", I replied, "I'm Jai Las Ran Tag".

Security didn't react so they must have been harmless. A naive notion perhaps, but I trusted the security assigned to me while I was visiting with my Mother at the Engineering conference on Balie 2. I wasn't worried, they were unarmed humans.

I felt arms around me. "She's the one, grab her". Arms encased in some sort of strength enhancing suit. They would need to be enhanced. They were Human, I was Nova Battle Form. I might have only been 17 standard years old, but I was still over 2.5 meters tall and had a strength rating of 3, 9 times stronger than an average human, more on this world. As I was held the man who spoke the first time shone something at me and everything went...

I awoke. Suddenly.

One moment I wasn't awake, the next I was. I could only surmise that they had some sort of projector on me keeping me unconscious. I was naked in a chair; arms, legs and chest strapped in place. The naked didn't bother me, as my people only wore clothes on planets that had nudity taboos. The strapped to the chair did.

"I wouldn't advise changing to a full Battle Form, Ms Las Ran Tag" came a voice from a speaker near the door. "Those straps are esoterically reinforced and won't break or stretch, you'll cut yourself in half".

Looking around the room to see what I could use I noticed the door was armored and appeared to be locked, there were no windows and the light was coming from panels in the ceiling. The room was about 4 meters by 3. Not much to use. Apart from me, the chair and some dust bunnies, it was empty.

"We'll let you go, Joassa; I may call you Joassa can't I" he went on.

"No, I don't think you can call me Joassa" I replied, still looking for any clues.

"Why not, you may call me Gerald if you like".

"Well Gerkald, you can't call me Joassa for a very good reason".

"What is that" he snapped.

"Joassa is my mother's name. My name is Jai" I said with a smile.

"Jai ... the daughter ... those fools".

"So could you let me go and send me home, please? I'm sure that my mother and father are worried, along with the bodyguards assigned to me." I asked in a little girl voice.

I heard a door slam over the speaker and then ... nothing.

"Hello, are you still there? Gerkald? Gerald? Anyone?"

I flexed the bands holding me, but they had absolutely no give in them at all. He was right, if I changed to the full Battle Form I'd be dead, or at least very uncomfortable. I couldn't stay here, couldn't move and the fact that a squad or more of battle armoured troopers and a very irate mother weren't here meant that things were bad. Very bad. My mother and father wouldn't let me be gone this long unless they couldn't find me.

I felt the esoteric currents to start pulling power, I should have thought of that first, but it "tasted" strange. "Oh shit," I muttered, "I've been moved to another plane or reality. They might never find me". I also realised that my aura was basically empty. I couldn't pull any energy using my Arch-Warlock skills, but the Magick skills Joassa had taught me worked fine. I had access to some energy, but had to convert the Chaotic Prime energy I could pull in to Arch-Warlock energy to use properly. I was going to be very limited with energy use outside my Aura.

I wondered if the bands would shrink? They didn't feel too tight. Breathing out and collapsing my chest as far as it went (please no smart arse comments, NBF are basically flat chested, even the female variant) I felt the band slip and a gap, a whole ½ centimeter appeared. Great, now we have a chance. Reaching into my on board computer I brought up the transformation routines. Full Battle Form ... definitely not, Utility Form ... still too big. Another form showed on the selection criteria, a new one. It had a memo attached. I "clicked" the memo and Dad's voice sounded in my head.