Tales of Reign

by M E Wise

  Drugged. Drugged to sleep. For my own good. For safety. Sleeping captive.

  Sovereign Chapter 12

  Zealot

  “Reign! Where have you been going?” Dae screamed again. “The blood, the bruises and all of the secrecy are too much to just ignore!”

  I sat up slowly, stiff and unsure of the time of day. “You will know soon enough. I promise.” Dae stood at the edge of the room with bloodstained clothing in hand and an intensely stern look. “That doesn’t cut it! I want an answer Reign. This has been happening for nearly two weeks now. Since you went and met with S’lei.” She threw the clothes at me. “So help me I will confer with her myself!”

  “Dae please!” I moved with a groan. “I will…,” I placed a hand on my knee to stabilize my aching frame, “I can explain.”

  She calmed down as quick as she had been angered. “When the Ku’Gel saved us and the enveloping energy towed with it debris from the Sol System, it wasn’t just the people we had found.” The soreness always faded after a shower. I stood to popping sounds and stretched. Dae gasped at the sight of my many bruises. “Reign those are horrible contusions.” She moved close to examine me closer. “You should come to the lab and let me bathe you in some medicinal fluid in a deprivation chamber.”

  “I can’t.” Dae looked very distressed at this denial. “I have only a short window to operate in.”

  “Operate on what? This cloak and dagger routine is nonsense!” She scorned. She escorted me to the showers and started the water. “Whatever you are hiding I need to know Reign. I trust you but I don’t have to trust everyone else to keep you safe. I won’t become a widow and be left to this damned alien planet without you!” She started to cry. She was right I needed to heal. For me that wouldn’t take long; twenty-four hours, maybe more.

  The water stung open cuts on my face. “Dae, I have been learning to fight-fight like them.” Her eyes cut with an icy stare. She waited. “The Mor’h have one of the elite guard captive. I have been questioning him and sparring with him to learn how to level the playing field against them.” She leaned angrily against the opposite wall of the walk-in shower. “No one blames you for being angry with them or even wanting to get some sort of revenge but it is not your way, our way!” She said with a shaken voice. “You are not a warrior, some mindless soldier without a conscience. They are killers Reign! Killers who I have seen make examples of people like you and I!” Tears flowed from her beautiful blue eyes.

  “They nearly tortured you to death!” She sobbed and trembled, her voice shrill. “They had me revive you and drug you…” she couldn’t continue. “It’s ok. It’s ok.” I reached for her and she pulled away. I persisted and she joined me in the water-flow. Her clothes became quickly soaked.

  “Looks like you need to get out of those!” I joked. She laughed and lowered her head. “Love me?” I asked her.

  “Of course that is why I hate this!” She locked eyes with me. We began to kiss and work her body out of her tangled and wet clothing. The rest was pained but effortless. She worked her healing hands and we exchanged promises of more time together, should things calm down. Somehow there must always be times of calm.

  

  Dae nearly wouldn’t allow me to leave. The Rootworks as I told her is some place she couldn’t go. This made the ordeal worse. Eventually she had me promise to not fight this time; I reluctantly agreed. It was for the best anyhow. I need to engage his mind. Brigman, as he said his name was, provided a much needed expression I had denied myself. At one time I thought it was human nature to feel that internal strife between harmony and savagery; now I realize those things are tempered. If one is fed more than the other, the growth is spoiled. The roots stay shallow and they stay raw and surfaced. I had deeply rooted myself to not harm anyone. The moment I unleashed on the Stonewall killing Molnar changed all of that. It has altered me in a sense.

  Dae was right; they are killers and I am not some soldier but I am not helpless. This reality was a direct result of the forming of SPEAR. They felt vulnerable in all of their unchallenged glory. One man, alien or not, symbolized all of human frailty, revealing things they had only imagined now possible. The mind was their kingdom. Man had basked in the idea that they were the only sentient and intelligent wonders of the galaxy but were wrong. Sure some had tried to draw light on this possibility but the truth of it remained a puppet show for entertainment.

  The trips back and forth to the Rootworks were blurs. My thoughts raced just like this, every time I left to confront my enemy. Only I didn’t want them as my enemy. Deep inside I wanted to somehow end this, break his will and then show him our ways. I would then send him back to his people; larger than life, modified for war and pacified by the gentle alien half his size. Then I remember the weeded Sori. They were small and abundant but were wiped out by a manufactured weakness. Man could do that. Send a virus or disease back to kill the Mor’h and myself. And I realized they had won so much already. Paranoia had turned me into an irrational fear monger. This one man, encompassed by his obvious insecurities, had in his way made himself a victim of his own fear. He was now propagating what he knew so well to me.

  “This has to end.” I said aloud as I landed the bell craft on the spaceport pad.

  Gi’Ger and S’lei waited for me at the end of the platform. S’lei had grown weary of these events and voiced concern. Gi’Ger, who relished the findings had also seemingly grown bored with the relentless back and forth. As for the rest of the council they had stopped coming by day three. How I kept coming back so energized was beyond me. I didn’t speak as we grouped and walked toward the Rain Well entrance, there was no need to. This entourage knew exactly what I was here for.

  The dank trek to the Rootworks was like a surge of adrenaline. The odd sensation was an obvious conditioning of the last ten days. And like any addiction I could feel unnatural needs well up inside me. I had to suppress them though. This would be my last trip fueled with anger and contempt. I must pacify this hate and let reason guide me. I stopped to focus upon entering in the large chamber across from the holding cell. “This is not a test of your roots Reign.” Muttered Gi’Ger. He stretched his cold hand to my exposed shoulder. “You can do nothing or continue like before. Your actions now bear no new fruit.” I looked into his eyes and at his great stature.

  “Gi’Ger shares correct dear one. Your growth is unchallenged here.” Added S’lei.

  “I have made up my mind.” The walk to the cell held a bold and persistent enemy. “Back again.” He scoffed. Through pain and defiant will he still craved violence and the fight. “I do admire your insatiable will, Brigman.” I began walking through the barrier without the stun filter on. “I beat you bloody in my underpants.” He laughed.

  “You can keep taunting. It doesn’t improve or worsen your circumstances. You can’t deny that this is your nature. You are this anger. The person who underwent drastic changes to become a more effective killing tool. You abandoned your humanity to hunt the unknowable enemy. What was the promise? The gift you received?” I paraded in front of him.

  “I am ready when you are!” He challenged.

  “I’ve been in that engorged head of yours. Beaten you inside and out. Using your skills and strengths against you. Then I turned it off.” I pointed to my head. “I turned it off and rehearsed what I learned. I can now beat you any way you could challenge me. And I still have this!” I again pointed to my head.

  “I see your game.” Brigman barked. “You think my mind is weak and that I don’t know you are in there. In there looking for things you can use to stop us. Yeah, you can stop me. One of us.” He chuckled deeply. “You can take my pride in a dust up but you can’t defeat what I stand for. You can’t beat the Guard or the sacred duty of my people, our Army’s, Navy’s and Air Force’s!”

  “I know you believe this. Every time I sweep your mind, I find you relishing in visions of a grand armada coming upon our celestial gate. That this entire detention was something you
had romanticized and even trained for. I feel all of that bravado and it has been eating at me!” I grew angry for a moment. S’lei softly linked but I gave her a wave of my hand to signal I am in control. “This!” I again pointed to my mind. “Is the most powerful adversary I will ever endure!” I slapped my forehead without much notice to how hard. “The drive to protect, console, preserve,” I felt emotions well up tight in my chest, “love. Is all in here, the mind. We have given you reason to be empty. You filled that with fear and rage. We can only take responsibility for this moment in your history though.”

  “This moment!” He spat. “The Halfer’s go back generations! Mutilated monsters that we first thought a disease. Only the truth was worse! Perverse!” He struggled against his bonds. “Your wretched people took our families and twisted them! You shook our beliefs and our convictions.” He noticeably wore a pained face. “Where I come from in Texas, good Christian women were tried for drowning their own babies for fear they might change into those things!” He fought his emotions. “Abortions rose. Birth rates dropped. Parents had infants they couldn’t bear to look at!” Brigman’s great chin shook mercilessly.

  “A few isolated cases, they would say. The news would run the story day and night when one was born, or some unfortunate families secret got outed.” He pulled hard at his restraints.

  “You speak like the Halfer’s had a choice. You talk like they were your punishment, a pollutant of your what; assumed purity!” I bit back. “Look at me!” He glanced with a hateful stare. “Look at me you bastard!” I got directly into his face. “I am neither human or Mor’h. They,” I pointed outside toward the Cresche, “are human beings who never chose their affliction! You however changed and mutated for hatred. You abandoned what they would desperately trade the rest of their life for a moment of!”

  He hid his face for the first time. I think in this moment he may have realized something but I held little hope that he could or would change his deeply engrained belief of state controlled ideology guised as freedom. “I want him moved. A special chamber that no one can hear him taunt or assault their ears. I want that containment moved to the Cresche and resting where he can see the Halfer’s who survived his onslaught build new lives. I want him to experience a painful peace.” Gi’Ger nodded and joined his hands in approval. S’lei wore a great pride on her face.

  “They-they are here!” Brigman shuddered. “You can’t do this-it’s not right!”

  “I can and I will.” Someone stunned him. I look and see S’lei staring hard at his unconscious body. I didn’t question her actions. We began to leave the chamber and S’lei reached to gain my attention. “What will you do now?”

  “Secure a people.” I said stone-faced. “That one does not threaten your roots?” S’lei questioned.

  “I aim to contact the Sol System and take responsibility for our actions.” I expressed soundly. Gi’Ger froze in his movements. S’lei stepped ahead and in front of me using her long strides. “The council must convene for a sharing of this proposal.” She was alarmed.

  “I just did.” Blood ran steady from my nose. I had linked with every Tah’l like they had done to me in my first council sharing. I drove my thoughts into their links and made no apologies for intrusion. It only took a moment to feel their reactions pour forth but I was unchallenged. “There is no more hiding. They know we exist; they have lived with that truth unbeknownst themselves for decades now. Now they kill and torture each other with that knowledge gripped by a secret few. No more secrets!”

  “This season ends.” Gi’Ger chimed. “A long winter is ahead.”

  

  Night had fallen as I arrived atop the spire. The lab was empty and Dae was not above or below. I joined the elevator and sensed for Dae as I descended down. I exited at the basin of the Cresche tower. The wide plaza was quiet and calm. Once again the refugees of the Tri-Utopia reveled around a fire pit that they had made permanent with cut masonry. The craftsmanship was great but seemed primitive compared to the sophistication of the Cresche.

  Ben and Rasha sat close together on a makeshift bench. It looks as if his persistence may be paying off. Taiyou was near them but keeping an intentional gap for privacy. Ahleea beamed with pride as she watched her daughter living the life she had always wanted for her. I wish I could give that to them all.

  Dae was sitting with Dalia and Wan Sah. They all had been in a hair make-over frenzy by the teased and beautifying but un-useful styles. “And there he is!” Dae garbled her words. “My husband. Lord of the Seeds!” She laughed soundly, drunk and stumbling. I rushed to catch her as she rolled backward off her perch! She landed well enough and crawled to a position on her elbows where her butt once was. “Whoops.” She said glassy-eyed.

  “Looks like you have been up to no good.” I said with a judging grin helping her stand. “Don’t judge me.” She said eyes squinted. “Don’t.” Her ladies gathered her lose articles and some empty bottles of Ben’s wine. They acknowledged me and made for the tower. It looked like they wore makeup. “Let’s walk for a bit.” I said as she wobbled and agreed.

  The moonlight was intense and faint blue. We strolled up a path where the ground had been leveled for some modules to be placed. I helped Dae keep her footing as we climbed onto a slab of cut rock to be above the local crowd. Hermes’ head lamps and rear lights streaked ahead in the distance. Sal no doubt was checking and double checking the day’s work. Some firefly moths swooped in and out of sight from the plateaus shadow. “Are you happy Dae?” I unloaded a difficult question on a person in her condition.

  “I have my good days and my bad days.” She blurted. “Mostly good. Some amazing. But some bad.” She swayed with the answers.

  “Any regrets?” This question weighed heavy on me. “Not yet.” She sobered. “This is kind of romantic.” She said bubbly. We sat with our legs swinging off the ledge of the squared stone. “Do you remember our honeymoon?” She asked playfully.

  “Of course. We should visit De Braga soon. How about in a day or so?” I said.

  “Don’t make plans you can’t commit too!” She scolded. “I mean it. I have something big to do tomorrow; when that settles we can take a day or so away.”

  “Really!’ She grinned. “Only if you want to?” I joked and she slapped my chest. I laid back and looked at the stars twinkling bright in the Mor’h system. I felt Dae’s hand slide up my leg. I looked to her in dismay. “Here!” I questioned. “Don’t ruin this!” She tugged at my clothes. She looked brilliant in the moonlight. The setting intensified the moment and we both left our worries on the stone shelf for a night.

  

  Sovereign Chapter 13

  Sharing

  I thought long and hard about what needed to be done; about all of the many trespasses that had been committed. Of the greatest of these crimes was the one unspoken. The act that was promoted carelessly, effected dishonestly from a curiosity must be shown the light. I couldn’t find the beginning and the who’s that were involved and at this point I couldn’t find a person not involved. We were all tainted and born from this chaos. Such is the way of this universality. To coexist in any future there had to be honesty; truth. No matter how idealistic the concept to protect our loved ones from the lies that have been told is, such dreams are for the sleeping, not those of us who are awake.

  The De Braga array station was as good as any place to start this change. The deepest polarity was truth here. You had darkness or light, the intensity of the two was an apt metaphor for the lines being drawn everywhere. And before there were no more allies to gain, no more unwilling participants to hide, no more shields to carry their once sovereign lives from the field of life, I have no choice but to speak for more than myself. I am not appointed, I am causality.

  With a few motions the panel before me converts the solar shields into a massive theatre. First the array is shown in blinking lights across the Sol System. The net that is Pluto’s Belt is then traced with connecting lines to represent t
hey are linked, one to another becoming a spheroid one connection at a time. The web-work is someone else’s accomplishment. An invader from one perspective; caretaker of another. An incoming link blinks in the lower right of the screen.

  “Reign, you have no right. These roots are ours!” Q’ua Z challenged in the embedded link. “I have every right.” I collapsed the link and blocked his sharing.

  I vibrate with the strain of linking the array to the most prominent satellites in the system. The moment is intense. Dae reaches for my arm and I wave her off. She recedes again into the shadows of the station. I brace against the podium. It is done. I am in control. Letting the array now maintain the link is a blessing I cannot define. I quickly wipe the blood from my nose and sturdy myself behind the podium panel. I can see myself on the local monitor; all of Mor’h can see me too. Now all of the Sol System.

  “Citizens of Sol; I am Reign.” I prepared no speech. “This is not a test, trickery or for your entertainment.” I look deep into the theatre, lighting my pale alien eyes. “As you can see I am quite different from you. You may know my cousins in a brother or sister, aunt or uncle, parent or hidden neighbor. You would call them Halfer’s.” I had mixed emotions on the description. “Our commonality is that we bridge two worlds.” I had holographic images of Mor’h envelope me. However dramatic, it was symbolic of my place here.