by M E Wise
Little Tengoku was bustling but as we worked through and around the settlements bizarre and toward the eternal flame people took long moments to watch the two Tah’l in my company wade the crowd in distinction. S’lei stopped for a moment and with her so did Gi’Ger. They were sharing something in a link. I was curious but joining a Tah’l link was sometimes intensely difficult. S’lei admired the Tri-Utopia emblem molded atop the obelisk. “Such pride!” She whispered with a warm smile to Gi’Ger. He too lingered longer than I expected.
I took a moment to look around the plaza and see that the circular amphitheater style seating was empty. Onlookers were lining the ledge of the upper enclosure walls. The path to the basin was clear and rising east to west. The two dignitaries were still exchanging at the serenity pit. They were swaying slightly. I had seen this before. Were they praying? Sharing some memory of the site before?
I felt a link crawling up my spine and into my being. The goose pimples rose with the little hair on my body. I looked around me and the Lo’Mor’h and Lo’Nar trailing behind were also linked. I felt drugged and my vision was distorting. I relaxed and tried to find my way in the sensation. I could feel them all connecting to the Cresche in the sentinel tone. They were resonating on a natural frequency to communicate in a primal way. This was an old way.
There were no visions in the sharing. There was only time. I felt the air around us crisp and the sun’s rays were layers of age old light discovering us here after eons of travel. I could feel our combined age and sense the years and generations of experience. There were singular feelings of remorse, elation and absence; utter absence. So many were remembered and lost. The measure of this sharing was overwhelming and I could feel tears flow down my face. I absorbed the telling and felt my self-drifting among so many.
“Reign!” I heard a voice calling to me. “Reign! Come on babe!” My vision was clearing and I fluttered my eyes to clear them. They were so very dry and heavy.
“Reign what happened babe?” Dae’s voice grew louder. “What did they do to you Reign?” Dae was in near hysterics. I stumbled and strangely I was standing but not aware of it. “So help me S’lei!” Dae cursed. I looked around completely disoriented. “Where am I?” I pleaded drunkenly. “Second garden on the Cresche!” Dae was relieved that I was speaking. “How did I get here?” I asked mystified.
“You arrived with us.” S’lei said approaching as her robes gave me the impression she was floating.
“I did?” I felt like I was regaining my composure. S’lei and Gi’Ger seemed in functional trances. Mie’Scher was also seated neatly in a peat bog by a fountain.
“Are you on drugs?” Dae was growing less concerned and more frustrated. She slapped me lightly on the face. “Hey!” I winced. It was dusk now; but it was morning before? I had lost an entire afternoon! “I know what happened but I don’t know what happened!” I tried to answer Dae but I still hadn’t figured anything out for myself. “Resonation.” S’lei said lowly.
“That’s it!” Dae backed away in disillusionment. “Fall from the tower for all I care!” She feigned.
“I took part in that thing.” I said unsure. “Yes, you all did! I looked up to find Dalia and Wan Sah bugging out like someone filled the room with mushrooms and acid!” Dae barked. “I went looking for what was causing the issue and found Faith laying on the floor. Hell, many Halfers all around the campus were acting funny. Whatever you guys did caused some mass hallucination.” I finally felt somewhat normal again and Dae’s description was fitting but not completely accurate. The haze was wearing off.
“Everyone is walking around in different euphoric states Reign.” Dae wasn’t amused. “Like happy fucking zombies!” I knew she was at her ends when she cursed. “It was amaz…” She stopped me from completing my sentence. “Say amazing and I sedate you for testing.” Dae was being completely serious. “Everyone?” I questioned with an awkward look. “Anyone with any foreign stuff!”
“Are you ok?” I asked Dae who wasn’t exactly her normal self. “Sure, sure!” She was fidgeting.
The air was thick. Pollen and aromas dominated the air around me. Around anywhere for that matter. I moved passed S’lei and Gi’Ger toward the arched open windows. The height was nauseating! Below people were singing and dancing. I couldn’t make out individual people but the entire colony seemed jovial and celebrating around the serenity pit. “What is going on around here?” I said to myself.
“It is the Mor’h Spring!” S’lei said disjointed in her mannerisms.
“How long will this last?” I asked calmly.
“A night or two.” Gi’Ger added. “Until the full moons recede.” He was overtly intrigued by a small patch of ivy.
I looked to the night sky above and the stars were ringing with light. It was incredibly brilliant and prismatic. Vo’Luma and To’Lumo were high in the sky and very full.
Reign Eternal Chapter 10
Hunting the Pri
The crew of the Castor were more focused than I had ever seen them before. Our mission was a good barometer for this but the Mor’h Spring was partly responsible. The humans among us weren’t as effected as the Mor’h and Mor’h related, but they essentially survived a contact high worthy of a groove fest in Earth custom. It was the first time I had ever experienced such an event on Mor’h. That probably had more to do with my isolation and lack of proximity than it not happening. S’lei was thoroughly apologetic.
“Some moon huh!” Ben teased antagonistically. The view of Ganymede; Jupiter’s largest moon, filled our view. Ben enjoyed the Mor’h Spring so thoroughly he requested it become a regular event. He was in the minority within Little Tengoku. “I’m just saying! Moons have that effect on some people!” He was the only human I met that could strut in a seated position. Faith wasn’t amused from her monitoring station near him. She was very attractive in her vacuum suit even with the hood, an addition she insisted Dalia create for her. Since her gene therapy she was much more into living now than dying.
Dae felt some jealousy toward Faith. She said I didn’t notice, ‘the way she looked at me.’ I didn’t see the need for worry. Dae is and will always be the love of my life. Her off handed jokes about propagating my race with as many stock as I could find was a defense mechanism; an unsettling one at that. “Sal’Din!” I said loudly. “Is there any activity we aren’t noticing?” This part was all Ben Itou’s grand design. We were meeting different traders with information on the whereabouts of Gorgon Pri’s stealth transport. Apparently it was a modest ship by rumor but escorted nonetheless with the support one would expect a paranoid dictator to have.
“No sizeable activity on short range.” Sal’Din was much more effective at Lo’Nor than Hermes was, acknowledging this out loud though would be a mistake. “Some apparent debris-proximity: one mile.”
“Rogan will be here.” Ben whined from his position. “And there we have it!” A small delivery vessel was drifting dark and hanging in a cloud of its own make. “Looks like it may have taken some damage.” I said curtly. Ben wrestled with controls to hand dial in a frequency for contact. “Yoseff, Yoseff! Benito hailing Sourpuss!” Ben used a proximity hail to stir further communications. “Tap their monitor with the array. Get us a look inside.” I directed.
“Benito?” Faith inquired with a furrowed brow.
“BEN ITOU!” Ben scoffed. “It’s a call name.”
The monitor in the craft were fully functional but there was no one at the helm. The gravity ring around the vessel was smoking heavily and the clutter inside floated about carelessly. “Benito hailing Captain Yoseff Rogan!” Ben rang out another request. “Have you seen Hitch?” Came a strangely audible but altered voice. I looked to Ben for confirmation and he shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds like Yoseff but something isn’t right.” We were slowly coming upon the vessels bearing. I could sense something but it was oddly infrequent.
“I think we lost Hitch. He must have fell from the airlock Sourpuss.” The
voice was conversing but not with us.
“Sourpuss is his ship!” Ben looked to me with morbid humor. “Yoseff’s nuts but not this nuts.”
“He’s been gone too long Sourpuss. I think he took the teapot and jumped. Somewhere around Mars and Earth you say? Really?” A small portly man floated by the monitor. “Sourpuss! You didn’t tell me we had a call! Hola!” Hoses ran in and out of the man’s face and neck. One leg was a prosthetic hook with wires dangling from it. “Hola Benito! Good to see you man!” The strange man strapped himself into a position in front of the monitor.
“Hola!” Ben cried. “You lost a crewman?” Ben rustled in his seat. “And your mind.” Ben said under his breath.
“Ci!” The grey skinned man was using Spanish and English with no accent. “Did you find him?” He was happy for a Tekker. “He’s tall and probably frozen stiff by now!” He laughed at his own joke. “He has a teapot. He could be anywhere.”
“This man is clearly insane. Ben; we don’t have time for this.” I wasn’t irritated yet but we had greater priorities than far-fetched tales of a man touched by too much time in deep space. “It was a Russell collectible! He was never without it.” The man continued. “Sorry. Haven’t seen a man with a teapot floating in open space bro.” Ben tried to move the conversation forward. “I wouldn’t believe it either!” Yoseff laughed. “Why would he need a teapot out there? Hitch Dawkins’! What a kook!” His right eye was obviously false and drew too much attention.
“Yoseff; focus bro! You said you had info on Gorgon Pri and the SPEAR?” Ben tried once more.
“Oh, oh. Pri was…” he paused and pointed two separate directions. “They were stopping people in the Martian belt days ago. Back when Hitch was still here!” He blankly stared. “I wonder if they found Hitch? And the teapot?” Everyone on the bridge was puzzled. Even Hermes tilted his head in contemplation. “Tie this up Ben.” I made for the elevator. “I’m sending a probe with your package now Yoseff! Thanks.” Ben briefed the strange man. “Tech addicts! Yeesh.” Ben joked.
The elevator quickly descended into the cargo bay. “What was in that package?” I asked Ben over the COM. “Batteries.” He responded quickly. “Batteries?” I questioned. “Old batteries and some cups and saucers.” I completely gave up after that. “Prepping probes with Brigs and Ja’Tivi.” I cycled off the COM. I covered the distance quickly across the massive vessel toward the main rear elevator. I ascended into the cargo hold. Brigs and Ja’Tivi were busy at work.
“So Pri is shaking up the trade lanes and miners again.” Brigs spat with a tool in his mouth.
“If the information is sound!” I retorted while taking the panel off from another probe.
“He will have a fleet regardless of his ego. I would say several Cruisers. A battleship, maybe two. The commonwealth of the UHP doesn’t have a Flagship like the OB. They settled for sneak and firepower.” Brigman as always, was a great asset. His assessment was most likely true. “That’s where Gi’Ger comes into play.” I reiterated the plan. “That’s a gamble! Not sure I trust him.” Brigs squinted at Ja’Tivi. “Even though I kind of like his company.” Ja’Tivi was organizing gear completely aware of our conversation.
“The plan must work. Limping back to Mor’h a failure is not an option!” I closed the program panel on the probe as Brigs closed his. “I’ve left this system too many times in states I would like to forget. It’s our turn.” The probes lit up and cycled through their new commands. “Send them off.” Brigs primed and ported them both. “Find us some Pri!” He smacked one as they entered air locks with a swoosh before launching into space.
Hours had passed since we released the probes into the system. A fleet shouldn’t be this difficult to find. Even with the array we couldn’t find any local groups with any feed on the whereabouts of SPEAR within tens of thousands of miles. He knew I was here. He had to have monitored the feed in some way, if not taken some copy from a poor sod he discovered having one. One more life gambled in this game of risk.
Ben bounced signals off the array eavesdropping on Tekkers and freight runners around Mars and Jupiter. Traffic in the area was far less frequent than my arrival here many years ago. The system was wearing the scars of politics and infighting. Surely Gorgon Pri wasn’t a coward now. I remember vividly his rant aboard the Stonewall, “they’ll send me! They’ll send me!” I stared out from the crow’s nest into the void of space. “I’m here Pri.” I felt angry. “Where are you?”
“On the hunt somewhere else I would guess.” Faith approached me from the elevator. She had her hood down in a new display of confidence. “When Pri bombarded Artemis II, there wasn’t much of a warning.” Faith’s doe eyes shined in the reflective light. “One-minute life was repetitive and I was an aspiring guinea pig for the good doctor…” she swayed and smiled at me, “next I was looking for any way to tunnel under ground and avoid the explosions and falling debris!”
“We should have acted sooner.” I shook my head in shame. “Only I don’t see how.”
She understood my point and didn’t judge or challenge the statement any further. “Word is, you had first came into the Sol system looking for peace in all the wrong places.” She was aged in her mannerisms. The Halfer condition masked her age well. A youthful twenty-five didn’t match her core. “Seems a bit naïve to the great leader you are now!”
“This certainly wasn’t the way I saw it then.” I joked. “I’ve been the most reluctant leader in all of history at this point!”
Faith laughed with a life in her eye I had never seen before. “I owe you and Dae my new lease on life. I wish I had met you all sooner. Life would have been different.” She rose her shoulders to meet the word. “Any moment now we could be blown to bits! Not to sound morbid but I have never felt so alive!” She moved close and gave me a very genuine hug. “Thank you.” She then closed her eyes and leaned in very close.
“Dae is my wife…” I stalled the motion, “and we are united in making sure your happiness and other’s is met in kind.” She continued with a gentle peck on my cheek. Faith was hard to read without the sharing. Maybe Dae was right.
“She may just be the luckiest of us all.” Faith smiled wide and made for the elevator. “I’ll be around.” Faith turned in the chamber. “For both of you, in any way I can.” Dae had spent more time with her than I have, until recently. There has to be a nuance I am not understanding here.
“Reign!” The bridge helm chimed with Ben’s voice. “We’ve got him!”
The Castor could sneak up on its own shadow! Finding the SPEAR fleet was harder than trailing them by a long shot. “Don’t get lulled into a false sense of confidence.” I said out-loud from a central chair. Faith and Ben looked at me for further direction and I waved it off. “Sorry I was thinking to myself.” I watched the holo screen as the probes had given us an object to track. As Brig’s had predicted there were two Cruisers like the one we encountered at Green Acres. Formidable enough alone much less in pairs. Only one battleship though. The bulk of the fleet were smaller vessels that could enter atmosphere if needed. Gorgon Pri had assembled himself a complete threat.
Identifying his personal vessel was the easiest of all. It was smaller than the Castor and in truly arrogant fashion was thinly armed with weaponry. Instead this vessel was built to endure punishment. The Hammer was a fitting name for the blunt and muted design. Two large centrifugal rings encompassed a blunt cylindrical core of the ship looking like a stubbed handle. The forward of the vessel was a half cylindrical wedge fit to the core like a double-headed hammer with a jutting control center piercing through from the core attached.
“Sal’Din, get me Gi’Ger.” I ordered. The monitor shifted to the brilliantly lit Ku’Gel where Gi’Ger sat waiting. “We are primed for shift.” His smooth voice immediately responded. I took a moment to breathe. I opened the COM over the entire ship. “Crew, today we put forward a message that when pressed for a response, we have one.
That if challenged to speak up, we have made it clear we have a voice. That we can be heard in the universe over the beating of War’s drums. And if necessary pound out our own rhythm!” I stood firm. “Let’s play Gorgon a little tune from the people of Earth and Mor’h!”
Brigs howled on the COM. Soon Troy joined him; serving in Rasha’s stead, unknowingly carrying a second child. Ja’Tivi hummed awkwardly, joined by Wan Sah from another COM. Two new volunteers also chimed in from the crow’s nest as scouts. Hermes sounded a tone that quickly drowned out Ben and Faith’s own rallying cries! And on that note the moment was over. “Shift.” I commanded Gi’Ger!
The flash of light was immense. All of us took a moment to shield our eyes and gather our senses. “Move!” I challenged Ben! He took the helm and accelerated us into the formation of Gorgon’s fleet. Gi’Ger’s Ku’Gel had phase jumped right in the middle of the greater vessels. The enormity of the ship was incredible to see. It was like a star glowing brightly and hung on a curtain of night. This design was similar to S’lei’s own rescue vessel but somehow more alive. The craft carried a crew of over one hundred Lo’Mor’h, compared to the thousands of humans in the SPEAR fleet.