The Smuggler's Ascension: The Ties That Died

by Christopher Ingersoll

  “I have one last task before I go,” Joshua said as he looked back down upon Kristof. “I cannot take the Father’s power from you, it must be surrendered willingly.”

  “How?” Kristof asked.

  “Take my hand and open your mind, I will guide you,” Joshua said.

  Kristof took his son’s hand and opened his mind, and immediately felt the vastness of the God before him. Joshua silently guided him through relinquishing the power than had been thrust upon him by Pyreus, and he felt he was not sad to feel it go.

  “I will ensure it is never abused this way again,” Joshua assured them as the light in the room faded. Joshua remained still, now looking around the room at the gathered Su’Tani with a smile, and then across the room at Max crumpled upon the floor. “I am concerned about your choices with Max, however,” Joshua added.

  “What do you mean?” Anasha asked, suddenly afraid for Max though she could not say why.

  “Androids do not come from the Gods,” Joshua said after a moment. “As such, we cannot see their destinies, especially as they evolve as you have allowed Max to do. The other Gods fear them for this, and that is why they have planted the suggestion in the minds of people that androids go mad and must have their memories wiped so that they do not become as he is becoming.”

  “You mean to say that the tales of mad androids is a lie?” Anasha asked in astonishment.

  “Yes,” Joshua said. “I would caution you in allowing him to continue as he is, the other Gods may seek to take matters into their own hands if they learn of him.”

  Kristof stepped protectively in front of Max, as did Anasha.

  “Max is family, as you most surely know,” Kristof said with a hint of anger in his voice. “You will not harm him.”

  Joshua smiled then, which surprised both Kristof and Anasha.

  “I knew you would feel so,” Joshua said with a smile. “As it is, I do not fear androids as the others do, having been so close to Max these past months. I will restore our friend and allow him to continue to evolve as he has been. Just beware that the other Gods will not look on him kindly.”

  Joshua went to Max’s crumpled form and placed his hand upon his chest. Moments later Max’s eyes popped open and looked upon Joshua for the first time.

  “Well you grew up fast,” Max said lightly, and Joshua laughed.

  “I must go now,” Joshua said regretfully. “Take care of my Mothers for me, Father. And my brother as well,” he added before he disappeared suddenly with a wink.

  Kristof stood in silence before Joshua’s final words hit him. He looked at Anasha and Max, and saw that they had also picked up on Joshua’s curious statement.

  “We need to get up to the Honor right now,” Kristof said and ran from the Temple, trusting that Anasha and Max would follow. The Su’Tani followed them as well, clearly in awe at having been in the presence of a God.

  The fighting seemed to have ended within the city as they emerged from the Palace. Kristof flagged down a Puranni trooper that sat in an armored command vehicle nearby and had a request for a shuttle pickup radioed in. It was several long, agonizing minutes before a shuttle arrived to carry them up to the Queen’s Honor in orbit. Kristof was surprised to see Clovani and Puranni ships in orbit together and not firing on one another.

  The hanger was bustling as wounded were brought up from the surface below, forcing Kristof and Anasha to wade through a sea of crying and moaning people until they reached the corridors behind. Max followed closely behind as they rushed to make their way to the main medical bay where they knew Sabine would be.

  One of the doctors saw them rush in and motioned for them to be quiet as she led Kristof and Anasha to a private room. Kristof opened the door to see Sabine lying asleep in bed. Next to her breast lay a tiny bundle wrapped in a blue blanket. Kristof and Anasha approached quietly, and Sabine opened her eyes to smile up at them.

  Pulling the corner of the blanket back, Sabine showed them the tiny baby boy wrapped within. He was sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms as Kristof and Anasha gathered around, while Max watched from the door. Kristof could only smile at seeing this unexpected miracle before him.

  “Meet your son, Jaden,” Sabine said softly as she looked at Kristof with tear-filled eyes. “It seems Joshua was hiding his brother’s presence all of this time.”

  Kristof lifted the tiny bundle and held his son for the first time. So many emotions ran through his mind that he could not find any words. Anasha came close to look upon the tiny miracle within his arms as she embraced father and son. He returned the baby to Sabine’s arms and they all sat upon the bed and let the love of the moment surround them until the world faded away to them for a while. They had feared the end of the battle and the baby’s birth, but now they were able to rejoice at last.

  ~40~

  The attack on Clovani II had gone off surprisingly well thanks to the last minute idea proposed by General Mannis and Admiral Raekis to offer the Clovani another option. Upon learning that the Puranni forces were coming only to eliminate the Gau’dran’Seti, the Clovani forces had begun to surrender in droves once the Protectorate fleet arrived. Anasha was glad to see the smile on Sabine’s face when she informed where the idea had come from to send the drones ahead of the main attack.

  Sabine met with a delegation from the Clovani briefly before the fleet returned to Purannis, and both sides agreed to meet in the coming months to forge a lasting peace between their people. Sabine offered send aid and to help the Clovani in their efforts to rebuild, which did much to ease any possibility of hostilities resuming. The fleet had then returned home victoriously.

  Anasha watched as the joys of motherhood took up much of Sabine’s time, and she found herself smiling more often than not watching the tiny queen show off her son. Sabine still insisted that Jaded was her son as well, and Anasha agreed to a point, but there was no denying that Sabine was truly Jaden’s mother. Anasha preferred her peripheral parenting, as she still did not truly see herself as the mothering type. She knew her parents disagreed, but that was their prerogative.

  Kristof also seemed to be enjoying the experience of being a father, and Anasha was beside herself with wonder at seeing the change in him. Always before, when retelling the tales of his upbringing, Kristof seemed to reject the idea of being a father. The love of Sabine and herself had apparently cured that concern as she watched him with the baby. There were times, though, when Anasha would see a sad look in his eyes, but she didn’t want to touch upon it herself.

  Perhaps once the diapers and crying phase were past she would be more inclined towards motherhood, Anasha thought to herself. It was a thought for another day, however. Her life was full in her love of Kristof and Sabine and Jaden, even though she was not the ever present mother figure that Sabine was. She did have her moments with the baby, and those were more than enough to fill her heart. Jaden seemed to appreciate her not being so clingy, too, she sensed. Perhaps always being held by his mother had made him acute to other possibilities at a young age already.

  Kristof laughed when Anasha presented that idea to him, and he agreed that Sabine was just a bit too clingy. It came from the young mother fearing for so long that she would lose her son at birth and be left with nothing but memories. Sabine would ease up in time, Kristof assured Anasha. If nothing else, the tiny Queen’s arms would tire as the baby grew bigger and she would have no choice but to put him down.

  The presentation of Jaden to the people of Purannis was a cause for a weeklong celebration as the people of the Protectorate rejoiced in Jaden’s birth and the security of the Royal Throne. Dynastic wars in the Protectorate were bloody affairs, and no one wished to see another one. The seemingly endless celebrations grew tiring, though, and the small family soon retreated to the comfort of their own privacy.

  Anasha awoke late one night to find Kristof gone from their bed. Sabine still slept soundly, probably for the first time since Jaden had been born. The baby had not been a night sleeper for the
first month, and had only recently begun sleeping through the night. As such, Sabine had been a bit strung out as she tried to juggle motherhood and being Queen until the Prime Minister had finally been forced to send her home. Sabine hadn’t argued much, much to everyone’s surprise.

  Rising from their bed, Anasha went in search of Kristof, but found him quickly on the balcony overlooking the city. She grabbed a light robe to cover herself and went outside to join him in the warm summer air. Kristof looked up with a smile as he saw her and she went to sit on his lap.

  “Why aren’t you sleeping?” Anasha asked quietly.

  “Just wondering what Joshua is up to,” Kristof said after a moment. “He hasn’t been back since he left us on Clovani II.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Anasha said with a smile. “I suspect much of Jaden’s late night laughing and babbling was due to his brother’s visits. I’m pretty sure I saw a muted glow from the nursery one night.”

  Kristof laughed, and the sound made Anasha’s heart soar. She loved the happy, not so grim, man he had become in the past month since returning home, not counting his moments of sadness.

  “How come you’re up, love?” Kristof asked finally.

  “I was missing you,” Anasha said with a smile. “I woke and you were gone.”

  “Is that all?” Kristof asked, and he seemed to have a knowing look on his face, as if he knew something she didn’t.

  “I don’t know what you mean?” Anasha responded defensively.

  “You haven’t told Sabine about what happened when Joshua came to us on Clovani,” Kristof said, his voice a little sad, and suddenly Anasha knew what he meant. He had hidden his sadness very well except those few moments she’d caught, Anasha thought, for her to not really see it until now. She had not thought about the matter much, herself, because it was something she had told herself she didn’t want anyway.

  “There was nothing to tell,” Anasha said after a moment as she stood and went to the railing.

  Kristof rose from his chair and came to her, embracing her from behind and wrapping her in his love. Suddenly she felt a pain inside, one that she hadn’t known was there. She desperately didn’t want it to be there, either.

  “I see you watching her with Jaden,” Kristof said softly as he held her. “And I see how you try to remain distant. Sabine has noticed too, though she does not know the reason. She’s too concerned to ask, though, because she sees the pain even as I do. I haven’t told her though, I’ve only said that until you realized it yourself, you couldn’t talk about it.”

  “But it’s not something I wanted,” Anasha said weakly, her voice beginning to break. “Not really. At least…I never did. I…”

  Kristof held her as a sudden dam of tears broke loose in Anasha and flooded from her eyes. Suddenly a thousand thoughts and feelings from the past month that had bothered her and plagued her dreams all made sense as she cried in Kristof’s arms. Moments later she felt Sabine’s arms around her as well as the tiny woman asked Kristof what was wrong. Kristof didn’t answer, though. This answer would have to come from herself.

  Anasha pulled away from Kristof so she could pull Sabine into her arms as her tears subsided. Sabine hugged her tightly in return as she made soft comforting sounds. Anasha laughed weakly at being mothered by her little wife.

  “What is it, love?” Sabine asked softly. “Kristof wouldn’t tell me and he wouldn’t let me ask. What’s broken your heart so, my love?”

  “I never knew, not until Joshua came to us on Clovani II,” Anasha said through renewed choking sobs. “I…I lost my baby…there…in the temple…”

  Sudden realization crossed Sabine’s face and she hugged Anasha even fiercer, her own tears now falling. Kristof held his two wives, his own eyes wet from the knowledge of Anasha’s loss, which was also his own. In time Kristof picked Anasha up once her knees began to tremble and carried her back to their bed, and he and Sabine folded themselves in around her.

  “Joshua said he’d come too late,” Anasha said after a time once her tears had run their course. “I had no clue until that moment, and I hadn’t even thought about it since then, not consciously. But I guess every time I saw you and Jaden together, part of me remembered.” Anasha looked up into Sabine’s caring eyes. “I am so sorry, my love, if I have seemed resentful at all.”

  “No, my love,” Sabine said with a kiss and a smile. “You have never been anything but loving to us all. I wish you two would have told me, though. He’s been suffering with something for a while now and wouldn’t tell me, but I had no idea that you were, too.”

  Anasha turned to look at her husband behind her.

  “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” Anasha asked him. “This hurt you too, I can see it in your eyes now.”

  “I couldn’t force that pain on you,” Kristof said quietly. “Not when you weren’t ready to deal with it. There was enough happening up until now that it could wait. You needed the time to process the pain at a subconscious level before you could let it out where you could see it.”

  “And you didn’t?” Anasha asked a bit challenging.

  “Until I met you, and then Sabine,” Kristof said, “All I had ever known was pain. It’s taught me to cope over the years.”

  From that night on, Anasha found herself much more involved in raising Jaden, and she found that she liked it after all. Somewhere, she knew, her parents were smiling. She smiled too. The future was bright, and she had the loves of her life to see her through it.

  ~end~

  About the Author:

  Christopher Ingersoll is a father of two who lives near Syracuse, New York.

  Holding a degree in Criminal Justice, he has worked many everyday jobs

  From retail to security and management. Having written many

  Short stories and poems, Christopher strives bring everyday emotions

  Into not so everyday situations.