Chapter 6: Leaving The Island

"Motor vessel approaching".

"Nikolai, can you identify it?" I asked.

"Yes Jai, the vessel is one of the regular supply vessels that supply The Island. They are not on the regular supply timing though."

"Well I suppose I'd better go and visit with them when they arrive. What's the ETA?"

"They should be here in about 2 hours, docked on the beach. I think if you are going out you may want to get dressed. You are a very young and desirable lady and they are rough sorts."

I realised that I had reverted to my normal mode of dress, none. Why dress when you don't need protection. The taboos and mores of this world were strange ... humans: can't live with them, can't kill enough to matter.

I needed to fix the armour jewellery so it wouldn't come off. I also needed some clothes and a plan going forward. I don't know how long I was going to be stuck on this world, so I needed to make the most of it. With the resources of The Island and its corporations I felt I needed to get off The Island and into the world and establish myself somewhere. This world was primitive by my standards, by a whole lot, but my chief bodyguard and sensei had always drilled into me to adapt to the is, not the was.

I went outside into the sun. Naked as the day I changed. I was dressed only in my armour pieces and held my sword.

I raised the sword to the sun and drew as much power as I could. It felt like a trickle compared to how much I would normally draw. I normally drew in the arch-warlock range, which was 1,000 times more potent than the magic range I was drawing in now. I had to convert the energy I was getting to arch-warlock energies and store it in my aura. After an hour of charging as much as I could I released it into the jewels, binding them closed and to my person. They were too strong to break and now closed shut until I repeated the closure and reversed it.

Exhausted, I slumped to the ground. I rested for about 15 minutes and then staggered back inside. "Nikolai, I need an energy boost and food. Once I've finished I'll dress and go and meet our guests."

"Very well Jai. Food and drink are on the bench in the kitchen. I'll have some clothes ready for you when you finish. They should be landing in a little over half an hour. You'll have to hurry."

I staggered into the kitchen and inhaled the provisions Nikolai had provided. Feeling better I made my way into my resting room and looked at what had been laid out for me. I recognised the dress; a spaghetti strapped sun dress according to my files. I recognised the sandals but not the other 2 items laid out. "Nikolai, what are these for?" I asked pointing to the 2 unfamiliar garments.

"Reference undergarments, sub category Bra, sub category panties Jai."

I looked these up. Damn but wikipedia had a lot of information on it. "I can't wear these. What is the purpose? I'll just go with the dress."

"As you wish."

Quickly donning the dress, then taking it off and putting it on the other way, I finished putting on the sandals and looked in the mirror. Strange. I looked almost ... girly.

"They have arrived Jai. They should be ready for you by the time you get there. Good luck. And if you need to contact me, find any phone, computer or communications device. Say 'Island Owner override Jai Las Ran Tag Alpha four two' and it will connect you to me. It will also function at full capacity and allow you to access its controls."

"Thank you Nikolai, you have been very helpful."

"No, Thank You Jai. You have advanced our knowledge and abilities 10 fold in only a few weeks. If the new Island Equation predicts what I suspect, and my new capabilities indicate it will, we will have advanced years in as many weeks. Be careful, these are not nice men."

I wasn't worried. I should have been because I forgot I wasn't in my normal body. I was so used to this one that forgot I wasn't as strong, nor as invulnerable as I had been. Without my fill esoteric capability I was very vulnerable.

Making my way down past the trees lining the beach I found the smugglers. Six men and two women were arriving in a boat. Five of them got out, leaving two men and a woman behind.

As I walked down the path from the forest, they looked up and saw me. I slowed and stopped about 30 meters from the closest of them as two of the men who had disembarked dragged the boat onto the beach and made it fast in the sand.

One of the men who had got off as the boat arrived turned as the other men became silent at my approach. "Hello young lady, how can we help you?" he asked in a decided English accent. "I don't remember seeing you here before; in fact we thought this island was abandoned."

"Hello, I was told you weren't on your normal delivery schedule, and we wondered why you were here at this time. Our agreement was you would only come when called or for the scheduled runs."

He walked towards me at an angle that would cause me to turn as he approached. It was done very subtly and I didn't recognise it for what was happening. Just as I realised I had turned enough that one of the men was no longer in my sight I started to turn back. I felt a sharp pain in my side as I saw two prongs suddenly appear in my side and felt a sharp jolt of power hit me.

At first it paralysed me, then it started to pulse. My body quickly adjusted to the power surges as they hit me and quickly converted this high power surge into badly needed energy. It also caused me to collapse to the sand from the first initial hit before I adjusted.

Momentarily dazed and shocked the men and women quickly jumped on me and tied my hands behind my back. I saw the man who had shot me look at his wire gun, TASER my comps told me, with a startled expression on his face.

"Boss, it didn't," he started.

"Not now Geoff," said the first speaker, the boss, "we need to get her to the ship and process her. She'll fetch a goodly sum".

I was still a little dazed, like having being hit by a stunner, but after the initial jolt the amount of energy that I had absorbed and converted was many times what the draw in the sun earlier had been. My body was still weak and uncoordinated from the stun, but my mind was sharp. The electricity I had absorbed could be a major source of power for me. Checking the levels in my Aura I found that the body comp had shunted most of the power into the body change reserves. I had enough for a partial transform into my current form. It may seem silly but that would effectively regenerate this body. I'd be drained again but healthy. I got the body computer to re-imprint the current status of the body so I wouldn't lose all the training and muscle memory I had spent the last few months training into the system.