by Mikayla Lane
“She is Valendran and a female; she must be brought home where she belongs! We can have the MedTech’s here evaluate her gifts and find a way for her to control them enough for her to live comfortably.” Councilor Davos stated as if the discussion were over.
Randor could see Scaden getting ready to verbally erupt again and knew he needed to intervene before the situation got out of control.
“With all due respect, all due respect Councilor, you are incorrect. She is only HALF Valendran, and HALF Earthling. She is not fully Valendran, and as such we can’t impose our will on her any more than we could someone else of two worlds. In fact, we can’t do that to any of the children we may find. You are essentially asking them to become our prisoners if you do. Like any other person from another world, we can’t force them to do something that they don’t want to do. Not even for their own protection.” Randor argued.
“You have a very wise argument Randor. I have to say that I also would not feel right about forcing these children to do something against their will. Although, they are a miracle to us and to all the families that thought their loved ones gone, we can’t violate their rights.” Councilor Satiya agreed.
“We are in a unique situation. One, we could not have ever imagined facing. And one we must think of more before making a rash decision. I too, do not believe we have the right to violate the free will of the children we may find. Including Cari, even though our initial reactions are to bring them here and protect them as we would any of our females.” Councilor Ivint Torenson added.
“I believe Cari should stay there for now and allow Amun to evaluate her and her gifts to the extent of his ability and send all information to our tech’s here so that they can better understand her. And we should ask Cari what she would like. Scaden, we will also send a Med-ship from here directly so that her, and the other children like her can be fully evaluated.” Ivint ordered. As the High Councilor, he alone had the authority to override the rest of the council members.
“I believe you are correct Ivint, and I shouldn’t have allowed my emotions to get in the way of my judgment. However, I respectfully request to be on the Med-ship. And I believe there are other family members of the other potential survivors who may wish to be there as well, in case their loved ones or children are found.” Caretia stated, her eyes welling up with tears.
“My mate and I would also like to be on that ship Ivint. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen our son, and we would like to be able to do so in person and not just through the comm’s.” Councilor Macner added.
“We are dealing with an unprecedented situation. This requires us to go against previous rules that have been set for hundreds of years. And I can’t help but think about the children we may find and their mothers. I can’t in good conscience agree to seize their children from them and whisk them away to Valendra, because their children may be the only hope for the survival of our people. And I agree that Councilor’s Lakatis and Macner and the others who may have surviving family should be able to go.” Councilor Namashoo, the only other female member of the council besides Caretia, stated. The rest of the council nodded their heads in agreement.
“Then it is settled. The ship will depart as soon as it is ready and since there will be council members aboard, we will send along the proper escort ships to ensure their safety. With such a heavy presence of ships in the area, we don’t want to take a chance that the Relians will think of us as a good target. Scaden, make sure extra precautions are in place and that the crew remains on high alert.” Scaden’s father commanded.
“As you wish, sir.” Scaden breathed a sigh of relief.
“Randor, I believe now would be a good time for you to try to explain to us what happened that allowed you and your crew to find mates. And what happened on the outpost.” Councilor Davos requested.
Chapter Eight
Amun settled Cari in her quarters and began the scans to determine what he could do to help her. Cari had begun to feel better as soon as they left the comm room though and was in no mood to be fussed over.
“Stop, Amun. I’m feeling ten times better than I did in there. Why do you think their emotions got to me so badly? I’ve never experienced that kind of … overwhelming feeling before.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. But if you sit still for just a few minutes, I can finish these scans, and we might be able to see if there is something that can answer that question.” Amun replied, smiling indulgently at her. He adored this woman, as did the rest of the crew, and he didn’t want to see her in pain the way, she had been when he walked into the comm room.
Somehow, this beautiful little girl crawled into the hearts of the entire crew within only days. Her smile lit up any room she was in and her happiness and wonder at everything on the ship was contagious. And he didn’t think it was only her projecting her emotions. There was something so very charming about her that made everyone want to be near her and make her happy. He grinned again when she huffed out a breath in frustration. It reminded him of Scaden, who did the same thing all the time.
“So, have you figured out if we can have children together yet?”
Her bluntly asked question startled him so much he almost dropped the scanner in his hands. “What?!”
“Oh, I don’t mean you and me, specifically; I mean me and a Valendran, in general.” She clarified throwing a cheeky smile at him.
“Now what makes you think I’ve even tried to figure that out yet?” He teased, wanting to see what she was trying to get at.
“Oh please! It’s probably the very first thing the council wanted you to find out! So give, I have a right to know too.” She made her best scowl face at him and all he did was laugh at it. So much for intimidating him, she thought. None of the guys on the ship seemed the least bit bothered by even her best scowl or angry looking faces. They generally just laughed at her attempts to look tough. Now on Earth, she could make those guys cower from her. She’d done it in stores all the time when she thought someone was invading her personal space.
“Actually, no one has asked me to find out. I think once the shock of finding you wears off; I'll be bombarded with that question. Why, do you have someone in mind you’d like to try to have a child with?” He asked wiggling his eyebrows up and down at her.
Cari blushed fiercely and laughed at his antics. Actually, she thought about it more often since she got on this ship than she had in all her years. However, she wasn’t going to admit that to Amun.
“Of course not, I was just curious. I think I would like to have a child one day though. And it would be nice to know if we, I and a Valendran were compatible, or if it is only our mothers who are compatible.” Cari hoped that would distract him from the curiosity she could feel from him.
“Well, I guess you won’t be mad at me then for going ahead on my own the other day when you were in MedLab, and running the tests?” He teased her with another grin. She huffed out another frustrated breath wanting the answer, not teasing.
“Of course I’m not mad, and I want to know! Tell me! Have you told anyone else?” He grinned more broadly at her demanding little tone and could almost imagine her stomping her foot in frustration, if she wasn’t sitting on her bed.
“Why would I tell anyone else before I told you?” He asked, knowing she was getting more frustrated by the second, since he could feel the frustration building in himself and knew she was beginning to project her feelings.
“Amun, I swear if you don’t tell me I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll think of something and it won’t be nice either!”
He laughed again and decided to use the scanner to figure out how her gift worked while she was not only frustrated but projecting.
*****
“We escaped from the outpost by stealing one of the Relian ships. The controls were unlike anything we had seen before, and we knew we wouldn’t get far so we headed to the first place we knew would sustain life, figuring we could hide out there until the rescue ships could
come and get us.”
“And it’s lucky we did too. It wasn’t long before the Relians were on our tail and firing at us, and the ship sustained heavy damage. Taran was able to figure out enough of the ship's weapons systems to fire back at them and damage their ship as well, but we ended up crashing on the planet. We saw the Relians crash as well, but they ended up thousands of miles away from where we ended up, thanks to Taran’s skill navigating the ship.”
“At first we tried to stay away from the humans because we didn’t want to do anything to influence them. But when years went by, we knew we weren’t going to be rescued, and it was getting harder to avoid people. We are a much larger species, and we couldn’t disguise ourselves very well. So we gave up on hiding and decided to help where we thought we could, without greatly interfering with them.” Randor paused, gathering his memories.
“The first time we helped form a society, they called themselves the Sumerians. Their ruler had the right idea about governing the people and setting up a city, and we agreed to help them. The people flourished for many, many years. Until the Relians, who had crashed, found us. They didn’t come after us and kill us; they plotted from the shadows and turned the minds of the people dark. They no longer wanted a fair and just society who lived in peace; they began to want war and terror in the hearts of their own people.”
“We fought to stop it from happening, but it became inevitable. We left, and struck out again hoping that if we were gone, the Relians would eventually leave the people alone. We did our best to help people during our travels in any way that we could, but decided that it was too dangerous to them to stay for any length of time.”
“It was during our travels that we came upon a small band of men and one woman. There was a man, in particular, who told us that he was an emissary of the All Father and he had come to Earth to spread peace and share the teachings of the All Father. He said that he knew of our plight, and to never give up hope. That the All Father was going to send to us gifts and that one day our people would come back for us.”
“Of course, we could never have anticipated the gifts that he was sending to us. There were other emissaries sent through the years that would later find us and tell us the same thing. But like with anything good, the Relians had to destroy that too. The first man, who came, was named Jesus, and we would never forget him. He was a truly amazing man. In the end, the Relians turned the people against him, and they killed him.”
“The Relians began to twist and destroy the messages of the emissaries until the people began to believe that they were supposed to hate and destroy those who were different. They began starting wars among themselves, killing any who didn’t agree with the contaminated beliefs that the Relians had made them believe. Sadly enough, even today there are people who wear the shroud of hatred like a blanket and continue to hate and kill based on what the Relians taught them.”
“The Relians even corrupted the Holy books that told the true story of what the All Father wanted the people to learn. And now they are nothing like what they were to be. It was during this time that the Relians had the people build the pyramids in their honor. They installed themselves as religious leaders and prophets among the people and ruled them with hate and violence.”
“They had themselves so well protected that we couldn’t get anywhere near them to destroy them. So we stayed far enough away to not be detected by them and ended up in what is called Greece. It was there that Taran met Lita. She was a beautiful woman, and he took one look at her and couldn’t stay away. Though we warned him against it, he took her to wife. It was the next day that they emerged from their home that we saw the Ator-Ma on them both. We didn’t know what to think at the time as we knew from previous scans of the planet that originally no compatible females existed on the planet.”
“Then how did the females get there? Were the initial scans flawed in some way?” Councilor Davos asked.
“No, they weren’t flawed. The females weren’t there at the time. They were being born. And they were easy to recognize as well, though we didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t long before Lita was pregnant. Any doubts we had that their mating was just a chance encounter, had fled. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl that she, and Taran named Iria.”
“Lita had a unique gift for healing. She could find any herb or plant with medicinal properties and heal just about anything. And one by one, we began to encounter special women in our travels. Each one with a unique gift and each one turned out to be a mate to one of us.”
“We had mates and children, and we were happy. Then the Relians found us again. This time they were angry we had found mates that could bear children, and in all the years that they had been raping and plundering the planet and its people they had never found anyone that could bear their children.”
“They found Razak’s mate and child alone, and tortured the little girl so her mother would tell them what she knew. In the hopes of saving her child she told them that we had figured out that the All Father had put special women on this planet for us and that each had special gifts, and we would recognize them through these gifts. She told them that the children we created also had these gifts. After they had learned everything they could from her, they killed her and her daughter.” Several council members gasped at the news.
“They began actively hunting us then, killing our women and children whenever they could find them. We had learned to hide well and after years of rarely finding them, the Relians decided to try to eliminate the women before we could find them, they started influencing more religious leaders in the area where we had been living. They began whispering that anyone with special gifts was a witch and in league with a dark entity, they called Satan, from their Holy book. This had the people terrified, and they began turning in anyone whom they thought may be a witch. There’s no telling how many women, meant for our people were killed during the years that followed, or how many innocents were killed, through hatred and jealousy.”
“We knew that we could no longer protect our women and children together. Not only did the Relians outnumber us, but they were using the humans to help hunt us down. We decided to separate from one another in the hopes that we would be much harder for them to find.”
“Through the years, there have been only a handful of times that our path crossed with another's, and we kept the encounters as brief as possible in order to protect the children. These few times we exchanged as much information that we could about the gifts of the children, and the others that each of us had encountered.”
“I have a list of those we can confirm dead, and the dates and places that I last heard from others and their families. The places would not give any clues as to their current locations, but it may give us a place to start.”
“I also have a few ideas on how to search for them based on the planet’s current technology. Like our comm system, the people have a way to access a global computer system that allows them to keep in touch with others around the planet; they call it the World Wide Web. There may be a way to set up a website, a place for the others to find us on there, that can’t be accessed by the Relians or regular humans. I have thought about doing so before, but since there was no way for me to make sure the others couldn’t be hunted and tracked; it wasn’t worth the risk.”
“With the technology on this ship, we should be able to create it and secure it. If I could work with a few techs on board we could probably have something up and running before the ships arrive.” Randor ended, waiting for the response of the council. It concerned him that they had not spoken even one word while he related the information to them, other than councilor Davos.
They broke many rules while on the planet. Under the circumstances that they had faced, he was hoping the council would overlook them.
“Scaden, ensure that Randor has access to any tech's, he needs to set up this website he speaks of. It would help us greatly if we could help the others find us, instead of attempting to search an entire planet for t
hem.” Councilor Torenson ordered.
“Yes sir, I will assign my best tech’s to him immediately.” Scaden answered, wondering when they were going to ask the question he most wanted an answer to.
“Randor, how did you know which women were different? Other than their unique abilities, specifically how were you and your men able to determine which woman was meant to be your mate?” Councilor Satiya finally asked the question Scaden most wanted to know.
“We would become unreasonably angry and possessive when another man looked at or spoke to our woman. Our thoughts revolved solely around them to the point of obsession. We would ache with the need to be with them and touch them. There was a feeling as if there was a primal beast inside demanding us to stake a claim on them before any other could. I had heard many times that this was the feeling all of our men felt when finding their mates.”
“But there was something about this that felt stronger, more compelling than anything I had ever heard described by anyone. And the strength we felt afterwards… was indescribable. It was as if they shared their strength and gifts with us. Even Mikel began to develop the empathic abilities of his mate. As I had begun to craft as my mate had. There was a sharing of more than body and soul, and it was so compelling it could not be ignored.” Randor told them softly, remembering his beautiful mate and child.
“Randor, I am so sorry for your loss and thank you for sharing this with us to help us understand. We will convene for now and think more on this situation. Until then, make sure that all information is sent to us directly. There are to be no more rescue missions without at least informing us. Is that clear, Scaden?” The tone in his father’s voice let Scaden know that sooner, or later he was going to be taken to task for his decisions and his earlier outburst. However, he was far too happy about being able to keep Cari on the ship to care.
