by M E Wise
“You are obviously unwell Pri.” I took a longer look as he dropped his pistol to the floor. His forehead protruded and his cheekbones bulged more. The bioroids made from my DNA caused some unexpected growth within him. “Weaning yourself from the alien’s tit are we?” The hoses from his body reminded me of the Tekkers. “Teched out and roided up looks like it isn’t sitting well with your physiology Pri.”
“Taunt me all you want freak.” He slobbered as he spoke. “You came all the way across the galaxy to confront me.” He sat forward somewhat. “Confront me!” He challenged quietly. “I expected you here…” he tapped his head, “first anyway. In my mind where you think I’m weakest. But I think you took a little bit of me with you.” I paused a moment. “You went from the innocent Starman to this!” He kicked the pistol away toward me. “You took some of that strength deep in my noggin-a little bit of that piety and hellfire!”
I put my rifle away. This man was hatred bottled up into something more disturbing than I could imagine. The truth is I was avoiding his mind. This man could spoil sacred soil with a single footprint. Maybe he was right and I had taken some of that with me. Maybe I sought out the reaper of my innocence and he wore a face for the part. “Aha!” He laughed. “I have you thinking. Thinking that maybe I am right!” Gorgon was a master at manipulation, greater than his formidable soldiering.
“No, you have used my kind for the foundation of your bully pulpit for far too long.” I walked into the clearing of the hall, lined with long flags from ceiling to floor. “You are what should be ignored and tucked away where your own voice becomes too painful to hear, until you go mute from your diseased language. Until your thoughts bury you in a coma of your own fears and anxiety.” Pri lowered his head. “You will live. Live for your crimes and own them.” My anger subsided into pity. I wasn’t too far from this pitiful creature now.
“One thought…” He prodded his temple with a group of fingers. “One last thought.”
I focused hardest on not linking with this madman. He mumbled and I leaned forward without thinking. “Die!” He covered the ground too quick to avoid. We crashed to the floor in the wide open space. He was choking the life out of me! “Come on! Come on in!” He screamed drooling into my face. The cables and hoses shook all around, pulled from their ports. Some sprayed fluid from his person. “Get in my head you fucking freak! Try it! Have a taste on me!” I struggled against his grip but he was so much stronger than I am.
I began to black out but he stopped short of this. “Oh not yet!” He released my neck and drug me by my collared gear. The alarms on my vacuum suit began to chime. “Uh oh! Looks like I’m breaking you. Your suit doesn’t like that does it.” He pulled me across the floor hard and froze in his tracks. “What to do? What to do?” He was truly insane. Violence to him is like an autonomic response! I rolled away as he searched for ways to further prolong my suffering. “Mute. You said.” He laughed. “I’ll take your tongue.”
I managed a good meter or two away before he noticed. The damage to my neck was severe. A powerful pain washed over me as I slid across the floor. “A little kick for your troubles!” Pri sneered. My ribs were broken. I rolled to my knees in fantastic pain. I sat to see him wind up for a punch. My face bled from the blow. “You are tough, whatever you are!” Gorgon Pri moved into my blurry vision. “You see I knew you didn’t want to be in here!” He again knocked on his head like a person would rap on a door. He knocked once more and he winced slightly. Pri stood straight up as my nose ran bloody.
“I don’t have to be in there.” I stood slowly in unbearable agony. “But you do.”
Pri stood fixed as a statue and I could see him squirming inside. His hatred was so intense I almost believed he could escape himself and as an apparition strike me down on some other plane of existence. I looked down at my fist and clinched it tight until my bones cracked. One good shot across his chin laid the man flat.
“Pri is down.” I bled on my wrist COM. “Pri is down.”
I sat next to Gorgon Pri’s senseless and motionless body. Somewhere inside there he was alive and well; just completely separated from his control over his person. But that wasn’t much different from the man before. Footsteps were approaching and I didn’t raise a hand in my defense. “Reign!” Troy called to me. Brig’s limped in behind him carrying what was left of Ja’Tivi. Hermes duraframe followed behind; his head completed destroyed.
“He tried to stun too many.” Brigs held his tiny friend in his arms. “He just froze stiff and they riddled him with…” Brigs choked on his words. “Can we just go home?” He uttered.
“They’re all dead.” Troy was unharmed and completely unscratched. “Reign, everyone is dead.”
I looked to my crew. “Consider yourself one of the lucky ones.” I said to Troy as I strained to stand up again. My voice was trashed. We walked over the corpses toward the airlock from which we came. Hermes extended straps for restraint then loaded Pri onto his back and Troy strapped him onto the frame extra tight. Hermes looked deformed carrying the man who dwarfed his frame. We climbed through the airlock unchallenged, unlike before. We limped with our dead and wounded to our craft waiting unmolested. We lifted off the Hammer and didn’t look back. The Castor still shimmered against the nebula lit by two stars.
There was no joyous reception. The crew who remained on board helped valiantly to secure Pri, attend to our many wounds and find space for our dead. I went willingly into a medical tank and quietly resigned myself to several days of lucid dreams and thoughts of the recent past. Not before I saw Faith kneeling broken before my containment vessel. The fluid took away the rest and I gave into the darkness for just a little while longer.
The visions were so real; the smell of the gunfire and the bodies were standing up to fight again! I could hear screaming; they were calling me. Their muffled words made no sense anymore! I was a monster now. My ears were ruined, my eyes forever tainted and my voice a hollow cry, wailing into an empty void in deep space. Please stop calling me! Please stop! I felt more in my head than my own thoughts. The fateful heartbeat of another tried to pitch with my own. The fear, remorse and self-loathing began to recede. The cries were clearer now.
“Reign you must calm down!” Faith was begging me. “Your sharing too much!”
I was still, weightless. I’m not in the cold of space? I’m in the tank recovering. I linked with the young woman so fond of me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” She put her hand on the tank. “We know.” She was so sad. “I know.” I went back to sleep.
“Please. Route the message on screen.” I sat in a loose tunic on the bridge of the Castor. Ben Itou was in his usual space and had grown quite accustomed to it and running the ship at once. He patched in the link anyways. “It’s good to see you Gi’Ger.”
The engaging Tah’l was holding up very well. “Reign.” He politely nodded.
“I’ve heard you sustained many casualties.” The words were still heavy in my voice. Gorgon’s stranglehold left me with a knot in my throat I still hadn’t healed from as well.
“Half the crew.” He stated soundly enough. “Many Lo’Mor’h will donate their materials if needed. Their bodies too damaged for reemergence.” His nonchalance was difficult to hear.
“We should be healed up enough to jump in a day or so.” I swallowed hard. “I am sorry for the loss of Ja’Tivi. He fought well.” Gi’Ger made no effort to console me or accept my platitude. “Mor’h awaits you.” He ended his transmission. “Reign. Dae has sent many messages and is out of her mind with concern. You should at least video her back.” Ben rarely injected such advice. I acknowledged his direction and left the bridge for the quarters below.
Wan Sah met me at the next level as I exited. She stood quiet and unmoving. “Going to message Dae.” I said sparingly. This perked her interest. “Bid her well.” Wan Sah cleared a path for me to move down the corridor. Faith sat in the community room ahead. I didn’t want to
avoid her but I also didn’t want to wear her concerns or vice versa. “Reign!” She reacted as if my presence there was completely unexpected. “Faith.” I was weary.
“You had us all so worried! None of us knew what to do after everything happened.” She had her hood up again.
I simply took her hand and pulled her to my chest for a long embrace. At first she seemed taken back but soon she began to cry. “We all need time to heal.” A said in a labored voice. “Some more than others.” I smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “I need to go.” She nodded quickly and I moved on and toward my quarters. I didn’t need the sharing to feel her eyes follow me away.
I powered on the holo monitor and turned on the link system. “Mor’h.” I whispered into the device. The screen loaded the view from the Lotus array. I felt a great sense of sadness. “Dae.” I said lowly. My wife appeared on the monitor and it was night there. Dae’s eyes were full of worry and relief was too far away. I touched the screen and cried as hard as my eyes would let me. She did the same at her end.
Reign Eternal Chapter 12
The Mortalien Treatise
“I; we will be home soon.” Dae grew tired of this statement. “The Premiere has asked only that we recover the living, we believe we have found the last of them. But transporting an enemy detail is not setting well with our people.” I waited for an inevitable wave of misdirected fears and worry but they didn’t come. Dae was surprisingly reserved. “And you’re fine with this?” I asked with a little hesitance. “I can’t change these things Reign. I am learning to worry silently.” She smiled brightly even with a noticeable concern on her face.
“I love you Dae.” I felt alone and longing. “I love you too.” She closed the transmission link.
Ben had once again devised a work around for our escort problem. We made contact with some traders and modified a long freight transport container to provide our friends of the SPEAR a safe and comfortable if bumpy ride home from the Kyrios system. Gi’Ger had long since returned to Mor’h space with the largest vessel in our fleet so we had to improvise a controlled and deliberate effort to get the helpless home. Drones were being used to find soldiers alive and willing to surrender in what was left of the Cruiser torn apart in the phase jump tactic. Given the nature of the combatants they were receiving a luxury unfound in their victims across Sol.
“Last count, 82.” Faith brought me the report from Ben. I was in my quarters going through unseen messages. “Out of a thousand!” I said exhaustedly. Faith nodded sadly. “Ben says this is to be expected given only half of the crew could be here.” Faith lightened the effect. “Considering half of the ship is setting out there in pieces, he has a point.” She placed her hand gently on my shoulder and with a noticeable change of heart left me to ponder the greater concerns ahead.
We took footage of the entire affair; before and after when possible. If Sol and Mor’h were to ever find peace we would need transparency in our actions if there could be none in our states secrets. I sat waiting for further reports on Brigs and Hermes evacuation of the wounded and recovered. Hermes wore an emptied can for a head now. Some harmless attempt at humor from Ben and the crew, a childishly drawn face was sketched onto the front for effect. I chuckled thinking about the seriousness of being rescued from certain death or surrendering to a machine with such an appearance. I laughed and wept a little.
“Sir.” The COM hummed with Brigs voice. “We are clear. The hold is secure and air-locked to the Castor.”
“Good work Brigs.” I responded in the empty room. “Take some downtime and have Troy and Hermes monitor.”
“I’ll sleep when it’s over Sir.” He retorted. “No rest for the wicked.”
I knew there was little I could do to change his mind. “Carry on then.” I replied to no response. Everyone was worn from this altercation. Michael Brigman was not one of them. He wore his pain differently, tucked it away for moments he needed it-or for when he was alone. Troy was managing but complained to his sister about nightmares, she in turn entrusted those concerns to me. Faith walked a line between the things she wanted when talking with me and the things she could trade away for honest facades. My love for Dae was an invisible barrier she could not cross.
Steven; a Halfer who joined our crew at the last minute on Mor’h begged and pleaded with Wan Sah to let him go home. This wasn’t possible and she tried to comfort him as any Lo’Mor’h would by linking with him only to discover he intended to commit suicide if answered incorrectly. He remained stunned and sedated in a recovery tank in the med bay. Ben remained Ben. “The universe turns bro; whether we are in it or not.” He said to me when I was recovering. He should know having walked our existence twice.
“The Premiere is on the link Reign.” Sal’Din sounded, regulating many ship functions while our skeleton crew strained to make due. “Acknowledged.” I said with disdain. Politics are a disgusting thing.
The monitor filled with a view of the office of former President Dominuus Anastas of the Union of Human Preservation. “How goes the mission?” Premiere Samantha Martin asked strolling into view. Her demeanor was entirely too chipper for my current liking. “This isn’t some errand.” I bit back more anger than frustration. She wrestled with the struggle between being offended and balancing the precarious relationship we have back to comfortable levels. “I know you’re tired…” I interrupted her. “82. We have recovered 82 SPEAR combatants.” I mulled over the log. “36 injured. 46 in various states of stable condition.”
“Their families will be greatly relieved.” The Premiere flexed her presidential act. “What is your estimated time of arrival? And when can we make contact with the other portion of the fleet?” The tone of the question wasn’t unacceptable but the unnatural concern for her enemies well-being and not noting one single effort of decency our direction grew old quickly! “The Belt is still a condition of the treaty. I will not relieve you of anymore stresses until some diplomacy becomes a central theme of our exchanges again.” The Premiere was smugly receptive.
“I will remind you Mr. Reign.” She was not alone in the room, a commonality of our conversations now. “We have just received an unconditional surrender from the UHP and are currently working through some legal, provincial and unprecedented problems with recovering Luna and its finer citizens back into our graces! Not to mention…” her voice raised but I had had enough.
“You strain my ideas of allegiance! With every single act of selfish idiocy, I find it harder and harder to assist an unwilling people to move forward when they would rather sit and cry. I don’t want to berate you personally but I am sitting in the midst of a field of debris, performing act and deeds that you have proven incapable of achieving.” I was focusing hard on my sharing and knew that we were headed in the right direction but needed time to adjust. “We have been out here for weeks; we long for home. The remainder of the fleet is safe and has received aid. We will deliver these recovered souls to the Mars supply lane. Luna if need be, but we are primed and anxious for home.”
“Home is a good place to start reevaluating and recuperating.” She said tensely.
I made a snap decision. “We will arrive in the vicinity of Luna in twenty minutes.” I stood firm. “Be ready to receive your people.”
I walked away without closing the monitor. “Sal’Din end transmission.” The screen went dark with the Premiere trying to say something inaudible. There is no more time for the infinite squandering of life by those who only care about advantages and ignore new possibilities, preserving various states of empty power. The Tah’l have taught me that much. The Mor’h have spent thousands of years living under a self-imposed suspension of extinction. Humankind wavers on that bloated line. They just aren’t aware of it yet, maybe a few are but the universal conscience of the species is not. Green Acres was a sign of this new awareness and look what happened to them.
I fastened my loose tunic and stepped into the elevator. I arrived at the bridge with a new vigorous want to be rid of all this
restricted formality. “Ben, prime us for jump.” He looked surprised at the command. Ben had grown comfortable in his leading role. “Sal’Din phase shift in fifteen minutes.” I linked with the matrix for confirmation of coordinates. “Command received.” The perspective responded. “What are you doing Reign?” Ben was rightly inquisitive. “We haven’t confirmed the rescued are secured.” He struggled with my actions and his lack of position in the chain of command.
“I have.” I was being elusive but it wasn’t personal. “We are making one stop and going home.”
Faith adjusted at her station. Ben looked to her for some insight into my actions. “I’m fine. I have had enough of bureaucracy and war. We’ve done our part and made our desires known. If humankind would rather play the same tired roles, they have always played so be it.” They weren’t relaxed by any measure. “Crew! Phase shift in progress.” I looked to my wrist monitor for green lights. They came in slow but steady response. “One last stop people and history will decide the rest.” I ended the COM.
