“There… There!” she said breathlessly, jabbing her finger in the direction of whatever she felt. She opened her eyes and looked at Natalie with the bright smile Natalie loved. “I’ve found her. I’ve found Leah. Natalie, I’ve found her!”
Goosebumps rose on Natalie’s skin as it sunk in. She stood frozen, eyes wide.
“Samuel! Please navigate to the following new coordinates. Please come to a complete stop and maintain our exact position when we arrive.” She shouted out a slew of numbers.
“Acknowledged.”
Jenn closed her eyes again and seemed to focus intently in the direction she had pointed out before. Natalie couldn’t tell the ship was moving except for a slight vibration when the engines engaged. Jenn slowly turned her head and body to keep the location directly in front of her. Eventually, her head was level and she had turned her body to face the opposite direction.
Jenn’s breath caught, and she yelled for Samuel to stop the ship. Natalie felt the subtle vibrations again as the engines fired in the other direction to slow down, then slowly stop.
With her eyes still closed Jenn put her arms out wide and twirled around with a look of awe on her face. “Natalie, can you feel her? She’s here! I have to pull her back.”
She didn’t wait for a reply before she knelt down and placed her palms onto the floor. After a few moments, Natalie saw a slight glow radiating from the her. The light increased until it was almost too bright to look at.
“Samuel, increase the power output on the ship to as high as it will go. I need it all!”
“Acknowledged. Samuel urges caution.”
Jenn ignored the warning. She grew so bright that Natalie had to look away and shield her eyes. She could feel heat flowing away from Jenn in great waves.
Small streams of light appeared, twisting and twirling around the room. Thousands of them popped into existence, one by one. The streams looked like thin ribbons of light tumbling in the wind. The ribbons flowed through solid objects as if they didn’t exist. Some flowed through Natalie, but she felt nothing. She looked around in amazement, mesmerized by the beauty of it all.
Countless tiny specks of light popped up around the room, pulsing and floating aimlessly like millions of tiny fireflies. Natalie reached out a hand to touch them and they flowed around her fingers like fine grains of sand. She could actually feel her skin tingle where the specs made contact with her.
It was the most beautiful thing Natalie had ever seen. Her heart warmed, a smile curling her lips. The swirling ribbons and specks of light seemed independent of each other, but Natalie thought both moved with some kind of purpose. After a while she could tell everything was slowly starting to rotate counter clockwise around Jenn. The closer they got to her, the faster they rotated.
Jenn wasn’t glowing as brightly as she had been. Natalie could now look directly at her without shading her eyes. Jenn had her eyes closed and was facing straight down between her outstretched hands.
The captured soldiers all stood, their bodies slack with shock. It takes a lot to rattle a member of the Legion and these soldiers were. Some of the ribbons and flecks reached the soldiers. They didn’t know what to make of them. Some shied away and avoided them, but some reached out and tried to touch them.
Natalie started to feel a vibration coming from the floor below her and an audible hum coming from somewhere in the ship. Suddenly, the ship shook like it hit something. Natalie was knocked off her feet, falling onto her back. As soon as she hit the floor, however, she bounced off and just kept going up into the air. She reached for something to grab onto, but there wasn’t anything close enough for her to hold. She slowly floated up toward the ceiling. Twisting so her feet were under her, she readied herself to kick off.
“Samuel says you’re drawing too much power and must cease immediately. The gravity systems just went offline, and other systems will – “
The communication system went silent and the lights in the room flickered out. Natalie braced herself as she hit the ceiling and managed to grab onto some conduit to steady herself. Even though the lights had gone out the room was still well lit. The specks of light buzzing around gave off plenty of light.
Natalie looked up to see Jenn. She was seated now, rather than kneeling. Somehow, she didn’t float away. Natalie glanced at the soldiers to see that their boots had activated their magnetic capability to stay grounded to the floor. She looked back to Jenn and tried to see her face through the swirling light. She was staring straight up, a look of sheer determination on her face. Her arms were out wide with her palms down.
Ribbons and specs of light swirled around Jenn in a frenzy, twining and weaving together until they spun into a blur. All the light in the room was converging on Jenn in a massive vortex.
Natalie felt wetness on her lips and wiped it with the back of her hand. Blood. She looked around for the source until she felt a dull pain in her chest wound.
Natalie realized with a jolt of panic that Jenn was absorbing every bit of energy she could find, including whatever she had given to keep Natalie alive. She doubted the woman could even tell where she was pulling energy from at this point. Natalie coughed up a glob of blood as pain shot through her body. Jenn had infused a great deal of energy in the nanites and they were doing an amazing job of sustaining Natalie. They even dulled some of the pain from her injuries. It was all being pulled away now.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the giant wall keeping the captured soldiers trapped was beginning to shift and contort. It was being pulled in Jenn’s direction, forming a kind of cone shape as it stretched inward toward and was absorbed by her. The wall continued to get smaller and smaller as it was absorbed until it finally disappeared.
Natalie’s side now ached horribly, and she could feel the familiar sensation of warm blood pooling around her skin. With the artificial gravity systems offline some of the blood floated away from Natalie in fluctuating blobs. She tried to use one hand to put pressure on the wound in her chest while holding onto the support to keep her in place. The chest wound from the sword thrust was the most severe, of course, and slowly began to bleed almost as bad as it had when she first received the wound. The pain from the severe burns she had received, what seemed like a lifetime ago now, raised in intensity again. Her whole body screamed in pain. She grimaced. She couldn’t survive for long now. The best she could do was hold on to the support and hope Jenn finished quickly.
Natalie coughed up more blood as she looked down to Jenn again. The woman looked like she was in intense pain, too. She seemed to be straining for all she was worth. Natalie smiled. Jenn would never give up and neither would she. She had to hold on somehow.
The ribbons and flecks of light were becoming more condensed. They only stretched around Jenn in a ten-foot radius. The lights swirled incredibly fast. The ribbons making pairs and twisting around each other almost too fast for Natalie to see. Everything started to become a blur as her vision started to fade. She coughed up blood again and was too weak to hold onto the support. She started to float into the empty space between the floor and ceiling. There was no fighting it anymore.
“Don’t scream,” she whispered to herself. Natalie took great comfort in Jenn being there with her. No matter what happened she’d not be alone.
Suddenly, Natalie felt gravity take her and she fell hard to the floor on her back. She felt ribs crack and some bones in her hands snap as she used them to protect herself from the fall. She could no longer breathe. Blood filled her lungs again, just as it had in the vault.
Natalie managed to look over at Jenn one last time. She stood, looking directly in front of her at a bright spinning ball of light hovering there. A moment went by in complete silence, then the ball of light seemed to vibrate and exploded outwards in a sphere large enough that Natalie was encased within it.
Natalie could see nothing but pure light, although, it didn’t hurt her eyes. She felt… something. A presence. It gave her a warmth and feeling of euphoria she ha
d never experienced before. All her pain melted away and her strength returned to her.
The presence engulfed her like a fire. She could feel what she could only describe as pure love emanating from the presence in overpowering waves, flowing through her body. She could do nothing except return the same emotion.
The presence began to fade and pull away. Natalie tried to reach out and hold onto it, but it passed through her fingers like mist. The light contracted itself, a spinning ball of light in front of Jenn. She cocked her head a little to the side, like she was listening, then put her arms out in from of her as if she was ready to hold something. There was a bright flash which made Natalie shield her eyes, then everything was silent again.
A baby’s cry echoed in the large room. The sound bounced around and cut through the silence like a knife.
Natalie slowly opened her eyes and blinked a few times to clear her vision. She finally managed to look over at Jenn again and was utterly shocked at what she saw. Jenn stood with Leah cradled in her arms. Jenn shushed the baby a few times to calm her down. Her whispers, barely audible, traveled over to Natalie. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Jenn held onto Leah like it was the most precious thing she had ever held. She look tired, but she smiled down at the baby with tears streaming down her face. She took a deep breath then began to quietly sing to the child.
The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So, I hung my head and I cried
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know dear; how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away
Jenn tried to continue the song, but she started to get choked up and stopped in a fit of half laughter and half cries.
“Your Daddy wanted to sing that song to you. He saved your life, little one. He was there for you,” she said when she steadied herself again.
The song broke Natalie’s heart. She recalled from Jenn’s memories the time they saw Leah’s father, Charles, practicing the song to play and sing for her during their one-month celebration that never came. Natalie could still remember how hard the man practiced to get the song just right.
Natalie rolled onto her hands and knees, got to her feet, and stood steadily. She didn’t have to check her wounds. She knew she had been healed by the presence. She still felt remnants of the power flowing in her veins. Her skin still tingled, and tears fell silently down her face.
Natalie rushed over to Jenn. She needed to see Leah, to look at her face and know this was all real. The girl was just as she remembered her in Jenn’s dreams, just as beautiful as the lights swirling around the room moments ago.
“Jenn… Jenn, you…” Natalie couldn’t finish. She shook her head in disbelief. Leah had stopped crying during the song and now looked content in her mother’s arms. She wriggled a little and a tiny hand came free, fingers grasping at air. Her brown eyes, like her mother’s, shined happily in the light.
Natalie and Jenn looked at each other and they couldn’t help but laugh with joy. Natalie wrapped her arms around them both and gave them a gentle hug, being extra careful with the baby.
“Leah, this is your Aunt Natalie. Aunt Natalie, meet Leah.”
Natalie placed a hand on Jenn’s arm and wiggled her fingers over the baby. Leah reached her tiny hand up, grabbed one of Natalie’s fingers, and pulled it toward her mouth. Natalie gently pried her finger away from the child, and caressed the top of her head.
“She’s so soft and warm,” Natalie said.
“She’s perfect,” Jenn said, still breathless.
“Yes, she is.”
“I can’t believe she’s actually here. All that time I worked on getting her back and she hasn’t aged at all. Somehow, she was able to… change herself to keep herself safe. She just needed a pretty big jolt to get her back.”
“She’s going to be a nerd just like you.”
“I hope so.” Jenn laughed. “As long as she has the kindness of her father.”
“Jenn, I thought you said you couldn’t heal me. How did you do it?”
“That’s wasn’t…” She stopped as she realized a dozen or so of the previously captured soldiers were slowly approaching them. The shield had been consumed by Jenn and they got so caught up with Leah’s arrival that they had forgotten about them.
A deadly mistake.
Natalie
Natalie turned and moved quickly to get between Jenn and Leah, and the soldiers. They made no aggressive movements as they walked. There was a Centurion ahead of the others. He walked with his hands raised, a show of surrender. He stopped about ten feet away from the women, and the soldiers following him stopped as well.
The soldiers stood there for some time before the Centurion in the front lifted his hands and pulled off his helmet. He was a young man in his twenties with blue eyes and sandy blonde hair. His face was hard as Natalie expected, but what she didn’t expect were the tears running down his face. He looked from Natalie to Jenn and the baby she held in her arms. After a moment, he knelt down on one knee and bowed his head to the women.
When he knelt the soldiers behind him slowly did the same. Some soldiers took longer than others, but eventually they all did. The cascade of soldiers removing their helmets and bending their knees was breathtaking to Natalie. There were women and men, both old and young, of every race common on Earth. When all the soldiers had knelt, Natalie glanced at Jenn, who was incredulous.
Leah made a cute gurgling sound that broke the silence in the room.
Natalie couldn’t take the awkwardness any longer, so she stepped forward and spoke. “So… um… what the hell are you doing?”
The soldiers remained still, but the Centurion looked ahead, without making eye contact with Natalie - still uneasy with looking at an exposed face - and replied. He sounded conflicted and confused. “My mind… our minds… something has changed in our minds, Praetorian. I feel different. I feel things that I don’t remember ever feeling. I’m sorry, but this is very confusing. I also felt… something or somebody in the light. The light didn’t speak, but I received a clear message anyway. In a way, it showed me the truth. We are all slaves and above that there was a… a feeling that I can’t explain. It was glorious. I…”
“It’s called love,” Natalie told the man. She knew exactly how he felt. She remembered the awful deadness inside, the dreadful loneliness before she met Jenn.
“As you say, Praetorian.” The Centurion paused and looked at the baby in Jenn’s arms. “I’ve heard of the word - love - used before. I had no knowledge of what it meant until this moment. That child… that child came from the stars. How is any of this possible? Is she a God?”
Natalie had no answers for him. She simply didn’t know how Jenn did what she did. Maybe she is a god, Natalie thought.
Some of the soldiers behind the Centurion nodded in agreement as he spoke. Natalie could hear some soft cries coming from the group. She thought the soldiers were shaken earlier, but now they were completely broken. Whatever Jenn had done to bring back Leah had some other serious side effects.
“Natalie, my dear, a private word if you please.” Jenn turned her back on the soldiers and walked out of earshot. Natalie followed.
“The nanites in their bodies are gone.” Jenn leaned close to Natalie to whisper. “There is nothing interfering with their mind now. They’re free just as you are.”
“How is that possible! Jenn, how did you do that and how did you heal me? I feel better physically than I ever have. I had a thousand cuts and wounds and now I can’t even tell they were there!”
Jenn looked at Natalie, then at Leah who had fallen asleep. Jenn smiled and shook her head at the child. Her face softened as she looked lovingly at her daughter.
“The answer to that is easy. The explanation is not. I wasn’t the one who healed you, Natalie. It was Leah.”
Natalie, Jenn
Jenn thought it best to make her way to the bridge and send Marcus back to the docking bay to handle the situation with the soldiers. Natalie waited for Marcus to arrive after Jenn left the room. In the Legion, a Praetorian like Natalie outranked all regular soldiers, but she wasn’t in the leadership. She had no idea how to lead people. She was trained to fight alone.
Natalie was grateful to see Marcus walk through the main door to the docking bay. He strode toward Natalie and the soldiers with confidence. He always walked with a purpose and held his head high.
He turned sharply to Natalie and spoke. “Permission to speak to the Legion, Pretorian.”
Natalie hesitated, but nodded after a few seconds. If it made the man happy to have somebody in charge of him then so be it. Now that Leah had been recovered, Natalie just wanted to get away from everything. She had a lot to think about and work through in her mind.
Marcus turned sharply to the soldiers and proceeded to address them. Most of the soldiers were seated or milling around. Some had their heads in their hands. None of them knew what to do. Natalie still heard some cries from the group. As a group and individuals, they looked lost. She knew the feeling well.
“I am the Senior Centurion of The Legion’s First Cohort.” Marcus raised his voice to be heard throughout the room. He paused while the soldiers made their way toward him. When they had gathered he continued. “I am a lie and so are you. For as long as I can remember I belonged to The Legion. Like you, I have no memory of before. The Legion was my life and so it was for you. We lived, suffered, killed, and died at the will of the Leadership. Totally and completely obedient. The Legion was my life. My life was a lie. I am not the Senior Centurion of The Legion’s First Cohort. I am a lie. We are a lie. The Legion was a lie.”
The Harmony Divide- Never Alone Page 19