Heritage (Under Revision)

Chapter 49: Elena

“So, who is this Tal whatta again?” I ask.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her before Elena. But she’s the only Sekrid I know that I would trust my life with,”

I raise an eyebrow, giving a suspicious look.

“Please don’t look at me like that. Nothing happened between us. You remember I told you that way back I got stranded on that Trivadorian prison colony? Well she was the one who helped me out. There was no romance there at all. Just the two of us helping each other survive until we could escape,”

“Well all that aside Ethan, why wouldn’t Leon come home? Better yet, why didn’t you make him come home? You’re his father. You could have,”

“I know Elena...but Leon asked me to trust him with this. He didn’t want to come home. I could see it in his eyes. He was on a mission and I couldn’t stop him from that,”

“That’s the point Ethan. Yes, you could have. He’s still a kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing. He lets Rin’Gal fill his head with wild imaginings of saving the galaxy and he jumps right on it. This is typical Leon! He’s always rushing for popularity and glory when it does nothing but get him in trouble!”

I stand up from my place on our bed and walk over to the dresser. I stare at Ethan through the mirror. I can see the remorse on his face.

“Elena...he’s not a child anymore...”

I whip around “He’s my child!”

Tears well up in my eyes as I turn my head back towards the mirror and begin to sob uncontrollably. I stare at the cold metal top of the dresser, watching my tears fall like rain on it. I feel a hand on my shoulder and then a tight embrace as Ethan tries to comfort me. I allow him to turn me around to face him, closing my arms around myself and tilting my head down as the vulnerability comes over me.

“I know you’re worried. Which before you say anything, I know that’s an understatement. And I feel the same way babe. But I would like to think that you and I taught Leon well. He didn’t just have regular parents. He had parents who fought off a mutant army from a tiny room for god sakes,” Ethan says trying to stifle a smile.

I allow a brief laugh to slip out.

Ethan takes my face in his hands “See? You know I’m right. I know it hurts to have him there. But he’s in good hands with Tal’Vira. You have my word on that. He’ll do what he needs to do and he’ll come home to us,” Ethan explains optimistically.

A sudden realization hits me “Stella. Does Stella know?”

Ethan puts a hand up “She does. I told her earlier. It didn’t sit well with her either. It was strange though...she didn’t take it as hard as I thought she would. But anyway, the important thing now is to keep our plan in place. Have you gotten a hold of any of your old friends yet?”

I nod “I did. But none of them want anything to do with this. After that I had to start improvising. And I think that I found out who could help us,” I say striding over to the other side of the room to Ethan’s dresser.

I grab a framed picture from on top of it and hold it up.

Ethan raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know about that Elena. I mean, the man just got out stasis. I would tend to think he’d want a vacation,”

“I already talked to him. He’s on board,”

“Really?”

“Of course. You’re both action junkies. That’s why you two got along so well,”

“Well that’s great. But how is he going to look into anything? He doesn’t have a security clearance anymore or anything. He’s completely off of the military grid with the exception of his discharge papers that he got when we went back,”

“Apparently, he knows some people from back before we all met. People that are really high on the food chain. People that owe him big time,”

“Let’s hope he’s able to call in those favors then. As far as you and I go, I think we should lay low for a while until my little unauthorized access thing goes away,”

“That’s a good idea,” I respond.

“Attention, Attention, General Blake, please come to the bridge immediately,” A voice plays loud over the intercom.

“Ah, perfect timing. I guess that’s my signal. You have to be getting back to your ship anyway,”

I nod my head in acceptance and we both head for the door. Ethan presses a button on the pad and the door slides open to reveal a familiar, albeit, unwelcome face. He looks at both of us with a smirk.

“Ethan, Elena. How good to see you again. Have a minute to talk,”

“Actually Angel, I have to get to the bridge and my wife has to get back to her vessel,”

Ethan attempts to move past Mr. Angel. Mr. Angel places an arm up to block Ethan’s way.

“It’s cute that you think that I was asking,”

Ethan gives a frustrated sigh “Lead the way,” He says.

Mr. Angel proceeds to walk down the hallway leading us. He reaches a room that is rarely used and walks in. Ethan and myself walk in behind him. Mr. Angel closes the door behind him and locks it. He takes a seat on one of the various tables throughout the room.

“So...Ethan, would you like to tell me where exactly you went yesterday?”

“No...I wouldn’t actually. But since you’re twisting my arm I suppose so. It was a defense me—,”

Angel puts up a hand “No it wasn’t. There were no defense meetings scheduled yesterday. Even if there was your trajectory was completely unwarranted contrary to what your loving wife told the good Captain on the bridge. What? Surprised? That’s what gets me about your military types. You think you’re always the smartest one in the room. Well it’s now reality check time. I have eyes and ears everywhere. I know what you’re going to do before you even do it. The both of you are completely under m--,”

There’s a sudden banging sound. One that’s close enough to make my ears ring. Mr. Angel stands there with a shocked look on his face.

My eyes trail down to what is a small crimson hole in his chest. Blood begins to flow from it as his white shirt turns red.

I turn towards Ethan who’s holding a pistol out in front of him, the barrel still smoking. I trail my eyes up his arm and to his face. It’s a face that I’ve witnessed many times once Ethan reaches a decision about something or someone.

I turn my eyes back to Mr. Angel as his body slumps and his head rocks back and forth.

Ethan silently lowers his gun and steps over to Mr. Angel. I hurry behind him to try and stop him.

“Ethan! Stop! If you kill him this is all over!”

“It already is Elena. I just shot and injured a defense agent. If I didn’t do anything it was all over anyway. This is the only course of action,”

Ethan raises his gun once more and fires two more bullets into Mr. Angel’s chest and head, causing him to fall forward, his head slamming loudly on the tabletop.

Each one sends a wince of grief through me as Ethan seals his fate. Ethan throws the gun on top of Mr. Angel’s chest after first unloading it, and then turns to me.

“I’m pretty sure he had this conversation monitored. Any minute now agents are going to flood through that door and arrest me. They’ll send me to a military prison and from there I have a few months until I’m court marshaled. Listen carefully to this part Elena,”

Ethan walks close to me and begins to whisper into my ear. My eyes grow wide at what he tells me. Before I can respond, exactly what Ethan said would happen, does.

Black suited men pour into the room and point their weapons at him. Ethan quickly places his hands on his head and falls to his knees.

He mouths a silent “I love you,” before he’s cuffed and lifted off the ground and dragged from the room. The only thing I remember after that is being taken by the arm and led elsewhere.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, what was it that your husband whispered to you before we went in,”

I barely comprehend what he says as I zone out, staring at the metal table.

“Commander...”

I snap out of my grief “Huh? What? What did you say?”

“I asked you what your husband whispered to you before he was arrested,”

They will almost surely sentence me to death Elena. This order will be carried out in another three months give or take. I have no doubt they’ll make a spectacle of it and invoke the public execution clause. Six months Elena. That’s the time you have to end this. I trust you.

“He just said that he loved me and to be strong no matter what,”

The agent on the other side of the table stares at me skeptically.

“Do you really expect us to believe that Commander Blake?”

“Believe what you want. That’s what he said,”

The agent seems to believe me, or let the matter go as he moves on.

“Now there is the matter of both of your statements regarding an unknown ‘this’. What exactly is this,”

It doesn’t take me long to formulate an answer, my former training coming easily into play.

“What we meant was our careers. We both spent a long time dedicating our lives to the UEDF. I didn’t want him to sacrifice all of it,”

“But see, that’s the question Mrs. Blake. You’re speaking from a point of innocence. If you and your husband were truly innocent of any wrong doing, why did your husband shoot one of our agents,” The man says as if he has me backed into a corner.

He peers over his large glasses at me, letting his skin fold up underneath his chin, his bottom lip sagging down to show yellowed teeth. I sit back in my chair.

“In a previous conversation, your agent threatened to have both of us killed, as well as our son. My husband felt he was defending our family. That’s all I will say at this juncture. Either charge me or let me go. I have a ship to command,”

The agent glares at me so hard I can feel my eyes becoming hot.

“You’re free to go Commander,”

I stand up quickly and leave the room. I make a direct path to our sleeping quarters and enter. I’m barely able to hold back the tears before burying my face into the mattress of our bed.

My crying is halted by a vibrating in my pocket. I pull out my TAPs device and see that Dante is on the other line. I press a button and a display larger than the device projects out of it.

“Hey there Elena what—Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Ethan...they arrested Ethan...”

“Say what?! What happened?”

I relay the whole story to him through tears and sobs.

Dante doesn’t seem surprised at all by my story “Well...I can’t say it’s out of the ordinary for him. The man would blow up a star system if it meant his family would be protected. At least we have a time frame now. All of us always work better when we’re under pressure. Hang in there Elena, we’ll get this done. On the bright side, I have some news,”

“What is it?”

“I’m going to have to do some traveling. But one of my contacts gave me a location to the whereabouts of one of the UEDF’s experimental facilities. Among other things, they did a lot of research in there in regards to Crinza and the virus made from it. My contact said it was abandoned in a hurry pending the arrival of enemy soldiers during the last war. That means that their records should still be intact. If I can get my hands on them, we’ll have them dead to rights,”

“That’s great Dante. Where’s the location?”

“Wellll...that’s the catch to this; the planet is a fringe world on the outer borders of Pulvan territory. As you know, we aren’t on the best of terms with them anymore. As in, me see humie, me shoot humie terms. It’s going to take some time for me to get the stuff together to get in quietly and get out,”

“What do you need?”

“I need a stealth capable ship. And I mean really capable. Pulvans have the best detection tech out there. On top of that I’m going to need a portable cloak device, a decrypting device for the computers, a sequencer for the doors and maybe a good sidearm that can punch through that hard Pulvan carapace,”

“Okay. Let me talk to some of my old friends. Maybe they’ll be able to help with that. I’ll see about getting a drop point set up and you can grab them from there,”

“Sounds good. Thank you beautiful. I’ll talk to you later,” Dante gives a big grin and hangs up.

The call allowed me to be filled with a bit more hope than before. I leave my room feeling like we can get through this. Like Ethan said, all of us fought back an entire space station worth of mutated people and came out alive. Dante survived a grenade blast and being frozen in time stasis. My family survived being on a sovereign class ship when it careened down to the planet below. We can make it through this. I’m sure of that now.