Ariaelf_writings

YAY! I have reached 10,000 words!

2003-02-04T05:00:34Z

* * *
Battered, and almost broken the ship limped along through space, hoping to make it to the nearest planet that had the facilities capable of fixing it’s extensive damages. Kyla, Tom, Gray and a very nervous Aranon were all heading towards Syrus’ docks. At their current speed they had another three days left before they would be there. It was going to be an anxious three days.
There was still the question of how Aranon planned to save his skin from the trillians on everyone’s mind. There was no telling when they would show up again, or what they would do next, besides kill as painfully as possible. His bloodshot eyes revealed his state of mind. He hadn’t slept in 36 hours.
He was thinking, trying to come up with a plan. He owed quite a bit of money, from his last “adventure.” He never found what he was looking for, though the trillians had “funded” the escapade into deep space. Now he found himself in serious trouble.
“Sir?” Kylla said. “There’s a message coming in, from the universal transmitter I think might interest you.”
“Oh.” He replied holding his aching head.
“Reading: PRESIDENT OF DIAMONDX, TOP DIAMOND DISTRIBUTOR IN THE H’RAN SECTOR, REQUESTS BOUNTY HUNTERS TO SEARCH FOR THE THIEF WHO PERPETRATED THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY AT THEIR MAIN VAULT ON TEH’VIV. THE UNKNOWN THIEF GOT AWAY WITH OVER 100,000,000,000Q IN DIAMONDS AND PRECIOUS STONES. THERE IS A 1,000,000Q REWARD IN CATCHING THE THIEF, OR INFORMATION LEADING TO THEIR CAPTURE. DIAMONDX IS ALSO SEEKING THE SERVICES OF AN EXPLORER FOR THE AMOUNT OF 25,000,000Q IN AN ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THEIR LOST TREASURE. HOPING TO LEAD NEW EXPEDITIONS IN THE SECTOR, THE PRESIDENT STATED THAT “ONLY AN EXPLORER CAN TRULY HELP US NOW, IF THE THIEF CAN NOT BE CAUGHT.” End message Sir.”
“Twenty-five million Q????” Aranon nearly fainted. “Folks, I think we have ourselves some new employment. Contact DiamondX as soon as we are in range, and get me a shuttle there from Syrus the moment we land there.” Aranon beamed from ear to ear. Saved by the Gods in the nick of time. He hoped.
* * *

Ch-whatever-it-is =)

2003-01-28T05:37:45Z

* * *
The titanium bars posed no problem to the thin woman in a black cat-suit who just glided straight through, hardly missing a step in her springing gate.
“Ah, well. That part’s easy.” She purred, and stroked her belly, which seamed to be concealing something.
“Come out little ones...I have a job for you.” She cooed. Out slipped two lively red and black Tar-Tar snakes, some of the deadliest known to science.
She giggled.
“I’ve been planning this for a very long time my pets. I know you’ll do you’re usual best.” She blew them a kiss, and stroked each one lightly down it’s soft spine, which made them take off like a dart in the direction of a key-hole in front of her.
“Go now...that’s right...hurry along. Go find food my darlings.”
The little baby Tar-Tars slipped easily through the hole, though it was no more then a few millimeters wide. Swiftly and surely they writhed their long bodies through the opening, like two venomous hairs making their way down a sluggish sink drain.
Quickly she activated the anti-wave device on the underside of her palm. It rendered the most blood-curdling of screams deadly silent.
She watched her timer. One minute was up. And 10...9...8...7...6...she took out a small piece of chewing gum from behind her jaw, 5....4....she wadded it up inside the key-hole...3....2....she inserted what looked like a pea-sized piece of aluminum with a small wire into the gum....1...NOW!
BAM!
Barely enough time to duck. She giggled as tiny pieces of shrapnel, which were part of the door lock a few seconds ago showered her in a glittering frenzy. The BAM not so much heard, (thanks to the device) but felt. And it felt like being kicked by a strong horse. No matter, there were things to do.
The hole was just large enough to fit her hand through, and turn the latch mechanism from the other side. She never liked to over-do things. Understatement, she had always said, was the mark of a lady.
Besides, what she lacked in a grand entrance, she always made up for in a truly spectacular exit.
Tonight was going to be no exception.
She slipped past the door, not opening it any more the necessary, and closing it quietly behind her. It wasn't really necessary to be so careful with her newly acquired toys, but she paid tribute to the old days of theft. The days that made her into what she was today. When burglary, was truly a high art form of skill and acrobatics, improvisation and attention to detail.
Sometimes she missed the purity of then.
Today however, was not such a time.
Today, she was getting away with one billion Zedats in precious gems – in less then five minutes and counting.
4:59...4:58...she took a look at the guards. There was no time to waste, but she always had a soft spot for her little pet’s dutiful work. They were so great at it. One couldn’t ask for more. It was a shame to leave them behind every-time. But after all, they were her calling card. Not that she could retrieve them had she wanted too. By now there were long gone, lodged somewhere deep inside the bodies of the guards, who lay sprawled on the floor in rather uncomfortable positions. It must have been indicative of their deaths. But, what the Tar-Tar’s lacked in brevity, they made up for in finality. Within days there would be nothing left of their bodies, but two, fat, over-gorged red and black Tar-Tars. Then she knew, sadly, the authorities would put them down, as common strays or rabid dogs. She shed a tear.
4:01...4:00...
“My sweet babies...” She wiped it away. There was a lot of sacrifice in life. The least of which was death. “I’ll see you again, in the great Abyss.” So, she stepped across the bodies and into the mouth of the vault.
It took a lot of hard-nosed dedication to make it through this part of the plan. For a while, she even doubted it was possible. But it’s amazing what money will accomplish. Three years, and a million and a half Zedats spent to gain the cooperation of some of the sectors most renowned and morally confused computer scientists, security specialists and good old fashioned hackers was what it took, she hoped, to break into this vault.
She held her breath.
3:36...3:35...
She knew the combination that they gave her now by heart, but she had it tattooed across her wrist for safekeeping two days before. Anxiously, long, agile fingers typed the code.
One. Six. Eight. Forty-two...
Asterisks. Theta. Bell. Gamma...
Dash. Alpha. Seven. X.
...
2:51...2:50...2:49...
Two reinforced titanium alloy plates slid open to reveal the final security check. Retinal scan, from someone cleared to access the vault.
For this date, and this date only, the Teh’viv government agent designated Fire Security Breech Liaison was allowed access to the vault, in order to inspect and test the vaults anti-fire systems. All vaults on Teh’viv, keeping greater then 10,000 Zedats in currency or other valuables which could be damaged by heat of 150F or more, were required by law to keep an active, computer controlled, annually tested Fire Security Breech system, for the piece of mind of it’s citizens, the confidence of it’s investors, and the business of it’s insurers. It was just all too bad for the government agent, that today was his day, and today was this vault.
2:40...2:39...
Removing an eye is never a pleasant business. She sighed. He was so young too.
“Well, there’s no cheating fate.” She said. “If you make it to the Abyss, I’ll keep a few demons at bay for you.” And with that, she removed the squishy sack of tissue which was once the young man’s eye, and let the scanner do it’s job.
2:15...2:14...
The enormous cross doors began to slide open with a vibration that could be felt by ordinary house cats for miles. They knew long before the authorities, but couldn’t say a thing to anyone, so they decided to forget it all with a good nap and fur-cleaning.
She tossed the eye in the direction of the guards.
2:00...1:59...1:58...
The doors continued to move, like tectonic plates shifting, rearranging mountains and oceans beneath the surface of Teh’viv, they rearranged the fortune of her life forever.
Before her, the open doors revealed a mountain of sparkling wealth, in every conceivable carat.
1:30 and counting.

chsomething =)

2003-01-24T01:49:12Z

* * *
“Eeeeeeeeeehkeh! Baaaaagbah!”
Aranon wanted to hide, but there was no place to run too. The grotesque figure of the chief trillian filled his view screen.
“EEEEEEEEHKEH! BAAAAGBAH!”
Things weren’t looking good.
“Uh....hello, Gibresh...”
“KundehBAHA! UchebogDON!”

“Hey now...no need to use that kind of language...” The trillians did not seem amused in the least. The ships universal translator kicked in and saved him from suffering through the wretched sounds of the trillian language.

“I do believe you owe us some money, Sir.” Said a computer voice, completely un-befiting the trillian now cursing on his view screen.
“I hope, that we may be able to resolve this matter as soon as possible.”

The trillians mouth kept moving in a string of oaths, though the computer had finished its gentile and slightly edited translation.
“Uh...look Gibresh, I’ll have the money for you soon. Real soon... I promise!” Aranon moved his hands around for emphasis. He always tried to do the right thing...it just never seemed to work out.
The trillian was unimpressed. “AFFFF GAAAAF!!!!” It barked at the screen, but all that the crew heard, thanks to the translator was “May I inquire, as to how soon exactly you propose to resolve this financial matter?”

“Well...um...I’ll get it to you within 8 quaff faces. I swear. Really.”
The trillian growled, a low, rumbling, slimy-wet growl. Then it did it again, only louder. Soon after it pounded it’s fist, or something close to a fist anyway, on the wall of the ship. It pointed straight at the screen.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHGAAAAABAAAAAGAAAACHOOOOGAAAALAAAR!”
“Yes, well I believe it will be possible for us to settle this matter in the time you have specified, as long a you keep up your end of the bargain. I must warn you however, that your possible tardiness could result in rather serious penalties. I’d hate to think that you might force me into something tragic. You really don’t know how much you care for your various body parts until you’re missing a lot of them, sad to say.”

Aranon gulped. The screen went black. The trillian was gone and so was it’s ship.
The last thing he saw was the ceiling getting further away from him.

* * *

Tommy and Syl were busy hunting for Agduffs, which are furry little rat-like creatures who live in Morus’ depraved soil, when she asked him the question.

“Tommy...do you ever dream?”
He paused for a second, blinked his ten year old eyes and laughed a silly laugh. “Sure I do, every time I go to sleep. Although...” He paused, his face becoming grave, “Not anything I want to remember most of the time.” He frowned away the memories and concentrated on the task at hand.
Syl stayed silent a while longer.

“Well...I mean...about other things. Like the future. Like...getting out of here. Possibilities...” she tried to explain. Tommy gave her a funny look.

“Well...imagine that we could get away from here. From this whole planet. What would you do?” She stared at him, making him uncomfortable. He turned his face away.
“I donno...I guess...I guess I do dream sometimes.”
“Like about what?”
A grin spread across the boys face. Then he shook his head.
“No, you’d laugh at me.”
“No I wouldn’t!”
“Naw, it’s stupid. We can’t get off here anyway.”
“Come on...you can tell me. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell!” Syl smiled. It was sad, but true.

“Well...remember one time, when we were younger...” Tears welled up in Tommy’s eyes. He brushed them away as if he was allergic to something. Both the kids had it happen to them every so often, and they would each pretend not to notice. Syl looked at her shoes as he talked. “When we were younger, Uncle had that chicken?” Syl giggled. “Yah?”

“He told me all these stories. About things called farms and chicken-coops, and eggs and ranches in the country...well...dad never did anything but figure out peoples taxes...” Tommy kicked a rock, “I just...I always dreamed about living on a farm. A real farm.”

Syl nodded silently. “I know just what you mean Tommy. I’ve had dreams like that too.” She smiled.
“Really?”
“Yah.” She added thoughtfully.
“The soil is so bad here. There aren’t a lot of farms on Morus. Only a couple, far away. Maybe... maybe there are other places where there are lots of farms, and the soil is good.”
Tommy frowned.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Other...planets. Like this one. But different.” She looked up at him.

“That can’t be true...you believe in that stuff? I thought there were no other planets. That’s crazy...all the grown-ups always said that you can’t live anywhere else.” Tommy stated, as if he were trying to convince himself, and then added for emphasis, “I didn’t know you believed in that wierdo stuff.”

Syl turned away. Silently, painfully she broke down into sobs. Tears streamed down her little cheeks and her nose turned red. Tommy felt bad about what he’d said instantly. He didn’t know if he really believed it, he was just repeating the words of his elders. He wanted to do something to make her feel better, but he didn’t know what to do.

“Tommy...” she cried, “I have to believe that stuff! I have to believe we can get out of here...If I don’t believe that, then I just don’t want to live anymore.” She collapsed on the ground and curled herself into a tight ball.
Tommy got down on his knees to hold her in a comforting hug.

“Stop Syl...It’s okay.” He looked into her glistening eyes. “I...I believe that stuff too.”
Through the tears Syl managed a little smile, and hugged Tommy back.
* * *

Ch8

2003-01-21T05:09:26Z

* * *

“STOP! STOP THE SHIP!” screamed Kyla frantically, trying to get Aranon’s attention.

“W-Whaat?” He jerked awake at the control panels.

“THE SHIP! IT’S ABOUT TO COLLIDE!”

Aranon desperately grabbed the reverse thruster controls, in a state of sheer and sudden panic. Expecting the worst, Tom, Gray and Kyla all braced for sudden impact with the objects hurling through space straight towards them.

The rusty ship squeaked and groaned, switching power and pull in the opposite direction. It was in danger of ripping itself apart, never mind the meteors. A ship that age can’t handle much hull stress, and Aranon was riding the limit. Every deck and brace and scrap of metal sang out in horrid, shrieking unison.

“WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” Cried Tom, bursting into a fit of tears.
Gray silently glared at the front-view monitors. Her weathered, steely eyes were almost enough to disintegrate those giant rocks into pebbles.

Kyla recited a prayer she hadn’t said since she was in grade school. It was a long, long time since she cared about her sins.

Aranon wondered if he should return to his peaceful dream of large-breasted women dancing in a field of lilies, turned into mermaids swimming in cherry coke, into little red cherry coke bubbles coming towards him chanting, “Drink us, drink us! Oh great Aranon the rouge, you know you want us....” and then thought better of it.
A world where he died due to his own disastrous luck made a little more sense then talking bubbles – though the women were nice.
He looked over at Kelly, who appeared to be terrified. Ah. He could finally gauk at her openly, and it didn’t matter a bit. Could there be a better way to spend your last few seconds in space...

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” She screamed.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” Followed Tom, in a higher pitch.

“GRRR.” uttered Gray under her breath, daring death.

Aranon sighed. What a way to go.

BAM!

BAM!

CRASH!

There. It was all over he thought. Soon the light. The white tunnel. The alysian fields. The fluffy white clouds and choirs of angels, the...flickering ceiling panels? The...tarnished wall studs? What the...

It was the ship. He was back on the ship. Still alive. ALIVE!
He jumped up suddenly from the floor.
“Kyla, what happened??”

She was still clutching a support beam, and obviously in a state of shock.

“Tom?” He had passed out. Go figure. Gray of course he could count on, and just as he thought to ask the most reliable member of the crew, he heard her voice.

“We’re badly damaged Sir. Structural integrity down by %68. Massive tears in the 4th and 5th sectors, decks 2 through 6 are no longer on life support. Our electrical system is thankfully still intact, but the radar is gone, we’ve lost 16 solar panels and three out of the four main engines. There’s also a mess of minor damages, too many to name.”

He nodded, both hopeless and thankful at the same time.
“Sir, I suggest we start with the engines and the worst of the hull damage we can patch from inside until we get to port. Meanwhile we should plot a course to the nearest base, slow and steady, where we can finish our repairs.”

“Sounds great Ms. Gray...” he uttered, exhausted. “Whatever you say.” He wheezed.

“I’m going to get started.” She gruffed on her way out the control room door.

“Wow, Gray.” Aranon said to himself, “You are just better then cherry coke, you know that?”

Kyla was getting up, feeling the contusion and gash on her forehead from when she hit the beam on impact. Her legs weren’t completely under her, as she staggered towards Tom.

“TOM? Tom are you okay?” She shook the logistics officer violently.

“Careful!” Aranon piped in, “You could hurt him.”

Slowly, but with a look of uncontrollable panic, Kyla asked in a hissing whisper
“Aranon...what’s that!” and pointed to the main screen.
There was a ship unlike any the crew had ever seen before.

All but him.

His heart sank.

His knees buckled.

He only thought he had cheated fate, made it through death, gotten away from destiny.

Now, here they were.

The Trillians.

And there was only one thing worse then coming face to face with the Trillians.

Coming face to face with the Trillians and owing them money.

Ch 7

2003-01-20T05:46:35Z

* * *

Tommy and Syl sat alone in the endless brown-rock terrain that surrounded them. Morus was a largely barren world. Three years ago a devastating plague wiped out the entire population of their planet. They were the only two survivors.

In a freak accident two biological agents that should never have been harmful, were mixed. One was a new super-fertilizer, in the testing phase, that promised to grow abundant crops on Morus’ unfriendly terrain. The other was a synaptic depressant which was being developed to help sufferers of Gurang Syndrome – in which the patients developed seizures, uncontrollable tremors, and a frenzied heart rate, all due to the brain’s vital signals surging out of control. The details of this tragic accident were never fully understood, but when the depressant mixed with the bio-fertilizer a virus was born. This virus spread so rapidly, and so violently, that within a week the entire population of Morus, almost 150,000 Moriuns died of paralysis to the heart and lungs.
It was the same week that Tommy and Syl, life long friends were far from the populace in the mountains of Higfar doing research for a science project. They were gone for exactly 10 days, and when they returned, the found nothing the same.

Morus was never considered an important planet in the system by outsiders. It was valuable neither in trade nor technology. Many of the habitants did not believe the stories of ships in the sky or other planets and their life forms. The Moriuns were considered backwards, and sometimes even barbaric by the scientifically and technologically driven space community. So it was no surprise then, when every man, woman and child, save two, were wiped out on the planet, the outside world did little more then read their sensor probes, log the incident, and chock it up to their own stupidity. They had it coming, they said. Messing around with bio-technology like that. What did they think they were doing. No civilized group of humanoids makes those kinds of biological and genetic developments before figuring out a method of space-travel or broad-range communication. It’s unnatural. Freakish. Against evolution. All for the best, they said. What did we expect from the rock-dwellers.

When Tommy and Syl saw the burning remains of their town from a far, (in the ensuing chaos from the start of the plague, many started fires in their panic, or in a desperate attempt and last resort to try to stop the spread of the disease.
It was over far too soon, and Tommy and Syl got a sick sense, though they were standing far, far away from the town, that something was terribly wrong, and it was worse then a fire.

Coming closer to their old home, they could already start to smell the mass decay of the first day’s victims, bloated and rotting in the brutal sun, high in Morus’ sky. They were only children then, 8 and 10. The smell, and the raging fire may have kept them from coming closer, but it was sheer panic and fear that sent them running away, as fast as their little legs could carry them.

That night they were alone in the dessert, for the first time without food, water, or shelter, desperate and wailing for their parents. They knew they would never see them again, and at such and early age they tragically understood the meaning of death.
You could say, it was fate that brought them together. But they were friends long before experiencing such horror. They knew each other since they were barely old enough to walk. Only Syl could get around on her own two legs in fact. But she was always happy to drag Tommy, the neighbors baby around. Their mothers were best friends since school. Maybe that’s why they hit it off. Or maybe it was the way they shared a love of adventure, science and nature. They were always doing some sort of research, pretending to be scientists, or explorers. They would run off to the mountains for days at a time without permission, but no amount of scolding would stop them. Eventually, the helpless parents gave up, and tried to get them to follow just the most basic of rules for their safety. They would always go with a weeks worth of water and food, they were taught hunting and survival skills in the scouts, and they had transmitters implanted under the skin of their necks so they could always be recovered in case of an emergency. The tracker monitored their heart rates, glucose levels and breathing, so that someone could always be alerted in case of an emergency. How sad that no one was sent to help in the emergency that faced the adults. As Syl and Tommy grew, they saw life’s facts as not only tragically ironic, having lived, but bitterly obscene. The world was turned upside down, when the strong and wise were killed in the most meaningless freakish way, while they, though green and naïve, lived by an accident of equally unbelievable proportions. This alone proved to them the existence of a God, and it did not seem to be a friendly sort of force in the universe, but instead one with a sadistic sense of humor.

Had there been a therapist around on barren Morus to help Tommy and Syl, they could have given him or her their life’s work in helping them recover. But unfortunately, there was no one, on which they could rely.

So, burying the horror of the past, under mile-thick, titanium layers of denial, repression and a touch of psychosomatic amnesia, they never spoke of what had happened again, after that night. They stuck to the basics of life, keeping busy building shelter, hunting food, finding water, making plans for the future.

There was only one thing they wanted, and they wanted it desperately.

To get off the planet.

* * *

Parts 5&6

2003-01-19T04:09:58Z

* * *

Tasha came into her bedroom and flopped over onto the luxurious lavender bed. She sighed and flipped turned the lights down, slowly. This was her private room. The room she came to be alone in...the special room. Doug didn’t sleep here, guests didn’t see it. Friends didn’t visit here, and it was the only interior door in the house with a lock. This was the room of her soul.

She had spent her lifetime collecting things for this room, it had seemed. She picked out all of the colors, in a tedious process involving dream therapy and detailed aura-color analysis. She read books that told her the power of colors . . . their effects on mood, creativity and energy. She wanted colors especially suited for herself, and herself only. It didn’t matter what anyone else liked, or thought looked good in the house. This was a place without judgment, without pretense. So she painted all the walls herself, and picked out every item of furniture, painstakingly over the years. She would spend hours and hours at antique malls, looking at various items, trying to find just the right one. She would ask their stories. Their history, and the history of the women who owned them. She trusted her heart. She found herself picking the pieces who’s owners had sad stories behind them. She wanted to take their burdens and honor them, give them a good home. A way of respecting the dead who had no voice when they were living. The women who suffered. The women who lived for everyone else.

Their stories reminded her of her own. But she would not live like that. She vowed, by the constant reminder of their furniture...their chests and armoires, their tables, chairs and dressers, mirrors, vanities, picture frames and jewelry boxes, she would honor their memories by not becoming another meaningless, suffering voice, in a choir of lost women.

She would avoid the rapids that caught them and wouldn’t let go until they drowned in tears. She would avoid them by knowing herself. Every weakness. Every flaw. Every joy. Every fear. Every pain. Every memory, every hope, she would know.

This room was where she came to learn.

It was hard, it would have been hard on anyone to face themselves so fearlessly, so bluntly. She tried to be gentle, but sometimes she could not afford too. The colors did effect her, in every way. She picked the colors of truth, and deep soul-searching. The colors that brought out what you didn’t want found. There were other shades for soothing and comfort. Other shades for restful sleep and the channeling of ideas. But these were not those kind of colors. They were the colors of her fears, and often she would step into the room and cry bitterly, until she couldn’t cry anymore.

But always, at the end of that searingly painful journey she came to some vivid realization about herself and her life. The tears were never wasted, the agony never in vain. It was in that blindingly bright end to her suffering that she found the greatest comfort. Not in vanilla scented candles, or peach lacy curtains. She valued the truth above all.

She was crying now, though she hardly noticed the taste of salt. She flipped a switch on the wall and the door locked itself shut, with a loud thud. She lay on her side, gushing out the river that trickled down her cheeks and chin, pooled around her collar bone and stained the white of her breast. She looked down, surprised to see that little drops of blood had fallen with her tears. How strange.

It had been years since something like this had happened. The first time it did, she ran to the nearest doctor, frightened. They had no explanation to give, but considered it harmless, although strange, after dozens of experiments and tests showed nothing abnormal in her system. She didn’t know what to think then, but it seemed to happen only in times of extreme stress, or precluding tragedy. She wiped the tears away. Perhaps it was something her father passed onto her.

Her sweet father. The kindest man she’d ever known. Though he died when she was still young, she could remember everything about him. The cut of his sandy hair, the sparkle in his eyes, the way the lines grew around his smile as she grew higher at his knee. He'd always told her to watch out for herself. That he wouldn't always be there. That being the daughter of an explorer, she should learn to stay on her toes, and ahead of the pack. She was his lucky little girl he said. His lucky little girl.

Tears flowed once more, freely and unashamed. Where was the other half of the equation that brought her into this world? How could her father love her so much, and her mother be no where in sight? How could she not even know what she looked like? Her own mother...

She wept, sourly in self-pity. He told her once that the last time her mother was around her, was when she was just an infant. He said that when she did not return, it was a miracle he was able to get to some synthetic human-baby formula before she died. He never expected her to leave without a word like that. He tried to tell little Tasha that he loved her twice as much to make up for what she lacked. But although she loved her father more then anything in the world, and although she had taken a stiff upper lip and a high-ranking position in the world, nothing could wipe away the pain that was so deep inside.

She didn’t even have a picture to remember her mother by. Sadly, she had to face the fact she had not a single memory of her as well. She blamed herself, though she was just a baby, for not remembering. She had gone through regression after regression hoping to come out of it with a picture in her mind she could draw out. Nothing. Nothing is what her mother was, and there was nothing that she needed more sometimes.

It was getting hard to breathe, and her face was burning hot. A piercing headache ripped through her temples, as her swollen eyes struggled to blink the tears away.

How was it possible to feel so lonely, so trapped, so meaningless with everything in the world in your grasp? She had a husband who loved her, a father who did, and a job that was the greatest thing in the world. How was it possible, that she would be reduced to this pitiful, wretched state, after so many years of saying that it didn’t matter, that her father was the only parent she ever needed. She had such a shell...such a shell that she thought was so hard to crack. She never even saw it. These things she felt alone, the heat of her tears streaming down her face while curled into a terrified ball, she brushed them off and too the side. It was ridiculous to think that a person she had never really met, meant so much to her, could cause her so much pain.

So much pain from being abandoned. Being left alone. Unloved. Uncared for. Un-nurtured. Her father tried and tried and tried so hard for her. How horrible it was of her to feel this pain, she thought, as if he weren’t enough.

“Where are you mother...” she whimpered. “Where are you....”

There was only one thing she wanted. One thing that could fill the void, she’d felt for so many years, and then denied. One thing, that she put off year after year, time after time, deadline after deadline. The thing that others took for granted, the thing that she so casually questioned privately.

She heard a soft knock at the door.

Doug, she thought.

“Honey? Are you all right?” He called.

She whimpered in the bed, then turned the lights down even lower.
“I’m....I’m....” she stumbled over her words. She sounded severely congested.

“Honey, open the door...let me talk to you.” Doug pleaded.
There was a pause, and then she flipped the switch.
The door unbolted itself with another loud thud, and then slid open.
Doug stepped slowly into the darkened room.

“Sweety, are you all right? You don’t sound so good.”

Tasha whimpered like a beaten dog. Another tear rolled down her cheek.

“Oh honey...” Doug replied, hugging her tightly, and brushing away the tear. “Don’t do this to yourself. Come on now...it’ll be all right....come on pumpkin....hush...”

He rocked her in silence for a few more seconds as she began to breathe more deeply. She found great comfort in his arms, but it seemed there was only so much the men in her life could do.

“Sweety...I was thinking...” she said with a hint of pleading in her voice.

He brushed away her hair.

“What is it? You can tell me anything...”

“I know... I know I’m already 52-“

“Oh, now you don’t look a day over 30, and that’s the honest truth.” He replied sternly, if this was the source of her worries.

“-but um...well...”

“Yes?” He asked.

“Doug...” she looked up into his eyes, with her tear-soaked gray orbs. “Doug, I want to have a baby.”

For a moment the world stopped turning as Doug Grenber held his wife close. He looked at her as if it was the day they met. It only took a moment for a smile to slowly spread into his weathered cheeks.

“Well, I suppose you’re going to have to get into a better mood, before we get started trying.”

Despite herself Tasha giggled helplessly and grinned. She kissed her husband, remembering why she married him, and everything in her frazzled world fell into place.

* * *

Tommy and Syl sat alone in the endless brown-rock terrain that surrounded them. Morus was a largely barren world...

Ch4

2003-01-17T05:09:10Z

* * *
“A DIAMOND??!! You’re just... joking right?”
Tashas white and unblinking expression silenced her.
“But...it was just...out in the desert...”
Tasha tried to recover her voice for a moment. “Look...there aren’t any known deposits of diamonds, or any other precious gems out in those deserts...trust me, we’vechecked... so all I can really say is... you’re an incredibly lucky girl.” Tasha beamed.
“Wow.” Was all Lyla could reply. It must have been 10 uncut carats. Tasha studied it again under the microscope.

“Judging by the flaw-lines, and internal structure...” she coed turning it over gently...(not that it was in much danger of breaking) “I would say this would be approximately a 6 carat round brilliant when cut. And that’s a conservative estimate....” She looked back at Lyla and smiled. Lyla looked like she didn’t know what to say. She turned away.

“Lyla...” Tasha prodded...

“I don’t deserve something like this Tash, it was an accident...the company-“
“Nonsense.” Tasha sternly replied. “The company had nothing to do with this! Now, this is your diamond, and you take it, and you be proud of yourself for what you found.” She beamed. “You deserve it. Every penny of it. I know you do, that’s why it came to you, out of nowhere.” She was so reassuring and motherly. Thetas what Lyla loved about her. She gently took the diamond out of her hand, as if accepting a gift from a proud parent.

“I....well....thanks.” She finally said.

“No need to thank me – you found it, so you earned it.”
Lyla smiled shyly and sighed a little.

“Wow...six carats...I’ve never even seen one that cut that large.”

Tasha giggled enthusiastically. “Oooooh Lyla...you’re in for a treat. You know how much 6 cut carats of a diamond that quality is? No eye-visible imperfections?” Lyla just stared back at her, dumbfounded. “No, we’ve never sold one like that.”

“Lyla, that’s over seventy-thousand dollars...WHOLESALE.”

She almost dropped the rock.

“Se...se...seeee...”

“-venty grand” Tasha finished off for her and grinned.

“I would never... could never spend that kind of money on myself. Thetas...thetas over two years of my salary.”

“Mmmm.” Tasha nodded. “Sweetheart, there’s something else you should consider, really. You know, this diamond, the way you found it... it’s... special. Special to you. Maybe even spiritual.” She paused trying to find the right words. “What I’m trying to say is...things like this don’t happen every day. But it happened to you. Nothing is an accident. It’s...it’s like a gift. A gift from the universe to you. All wrapped up in an unassuming package, six beautiful eye-clean carats of a little miracle. I think... you should take it as a sign. A token. Cut it...keep it...wear it. It’ll bring you luck...maybe even answer your prayers.” She smiled warmly.

Lyla looked up at her with large, wondering eyes. “Do you really think so?” She whispered. “A gift...from the universe to me?”

Tasha nodded solemnly. “I’m not surprised actually. I can see why.” She stroked her hair once, softly, and looked into the girls eyes. “That’s what I believe. That’s what I truly believe.”

* * *

Aranon, had the sort of drop-dead gorgeous blue eyes that would stop a girl in her tracks a mile away. They matched his skin very well.

But he didn’t just go out with anyone who took a look. He was a committed man. A man, committed to adventure, and his ship.

Somehow, he knew that it was destiny that was brining him to Teh’viv.

* * *

Tasha loaned Lyla the money to have the diamond cut, on the condition that part of the total sum would come out of her check bi-weekly. It wasn’t that large spread out over a year, and it was worth it. If not just for the single moment when Aisha walked into the same room as little Lyla, and saw the size of that massive gem on a platinum chain around her neck.

It no longer mattered how many stones Aisha had, how many one-carat rings...how she used them like fringe on her outfits. That one stone, that shone so brilliantly, and came for free as a gift to the girl, out-did every egocentric effect Aisha had ever tried to establish. Now, her jewelry really did look like glass. Her diamonds were sewn like worthless beads into everything, as if she were a crow lining her nest with silvery trash.

No, they never shined as well after that day.
* * *

Ch3

2003-01-15T02:20:05Z

* * *

Lyla found herself in the blistering bright sunshine, as the window closed behind her. She looked at the sparkling, white sand and felt like taking off her shoes and letting it sift through her toes. Of course she couldn’t because of the heat, and because Teh’viv’s sand had the unique quality of actually being able to cut you – though it looked beautiful all the same.

She made her way through the desert that surrounded the DiamondX building, until she came upon a large white boulder that she could use as a seat, and try to relax. She closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply. There wasn’t much friendly atmosphere on Teh’viv, but compared to the dark side of the planet, where she lived was heavenly. Outsiders couldn’t handle it very well . . . that’s why you could always tell a native by their ability to survive in the low oxygen content, and their large (for a human) lungs that had stretched to adapt. She had been told, that Teh’vivans even have a red blood cell count that was triple the normal for their species. ‘Those scientists...’ she thought, ‘...eagerly studying the effects of their own cock-up.’

The sun felt wonderful on her skin. She tingled with warmth. It was a luxury that she relished, since the dark side was always unbearably cold. She reclined back until her head touched the smooth white rock, and melted into the boulder joyously. An hour was gone in a flash.

She took a glimpse at the sun. Had it moved so much already? No matter, she wasn’t really hungry. She just needed a break. Carefully, she rolled herself off of the boulder and touched her hand down to the ground for support as she tried to stand up. The sand felt dangerously prickly...and...wet.

Wet? She looked at her hand. There seemed to be nothing unusual except...some sort of white crystal. It was relatively small, no bigger then a grape. She picked it up. It didn’t seem like much, probably quarts, she reasoned, or a strange piece of glass. A very large piece of un-broken sand perhaps. Oh well. She’d add it to her geology collection.

She headed back to the stark black building made of tinted glass.

* * *

It could be argued, that in many ways, Aisha was the perfect woman. She was tall, dark and beautiful. Her smile always made you wonder what she meant. She was always the most sought after, and the most envied at any party. And she carried an aura of impenetrable mystery.

There was however, one vice which she could not seem to loose.
Diamonds.
Diamonds everywhere.
Diamonds on her neck, in her ears, on her fingers, around her wrists, accenting her stiletto shoes, cuffing her tailored little business suits. If she could, she’d have them sewn into her lingerie ... perhaps she has. One doesn’t know everything.

What one does know, is that on any given day Aisha could buy several luxurious homes with the fortune that she wears on her delicatessen body. Unless of course, one is a fool so stunned by the sheer volume of her stones that they believe them to be fake. Many of the criminals that have passed up the chance to rob her, simply because they thought the stones were glass, would shoot themselves in remorse if they ever found out the truth. What they didn’t know, of course, is that Aisha Nite is the vice president of the number one diamond company in the H’rad system, and if there was one thing she truly loved, and loved fearlessly in this world, it was their merchandise.

* * *

Lyla was back in her office, feeling quite a bit better from the break, when Tasha walked in.

“Hey Tash! How are you!” Lyla beamed and gave Tasha a hug. Tasha smiled back.
“I came to see how you were doing. I see you’ve got your samples out.”
Lyla groaned. “Yes...unfortunately. They’re such a complete bore.”
“What’s the assignment this time?” Tasha inquired.
“Oh, you know. The old ‘put ‘em in order’ trick.”
“Ah, I see.” She replied, and glanced at her desk.
“I’ve done a million of them! But they’re so tedious...” She gave Tasha a sweet face, “I bet you could just glance over them with all the experience you’ve got, and have them lined up in a second.”
Tasha laughed, a warm belly laugh. “You think so huh? Kid...” she put the bracelet back under the microscope and began examining it.
“Why are you doing that?” Lyla inquired innocently.
“So I can see the difference, of course.”
“You mean...you...can’t see...the difference!?” Lyla gasped.
Tasha stopped what she was doing for a second and frowned. “No, of course I can’t just see the difference. No one can!”
“Then...” Lyla stammered...”Then...why...how am I arranging them in order...order of value...you can’t....”
Tasha paused for a second and then broke into a grin, which finally became another full laugh.

“Oh kid. You’ve still got a lot to learn.” She winked and smiled.
Lyla paused, reflecting on her words and looked at the crystal that she had found in the desert, still clutched in her hand. It was really an ugly little thing.

“Lyla!” Tasha gasped, and grabbed the stone from her hand, sticking it with one fluid motion under the microscope, while removing the bracelet.

“I take back what I said! This is a gorgeous raw sample! I’ve never seen one quite like this! Excellent selection...where did you buy it dear? How much was it!?? Oh it must have cost a fortune...”
“What?” Lyla was taken back. “Tash...you must be confused. That’s just some crystal I found out in the desert.”

Ever so slowly Tasha Grenber lifted her head up from the microscope. She blinked.
“Lyla...this isn’t just some rock. What you found...is an extraordinary diamond.”

* * *

Chapter 2

2003-01-14T05:37:06Z

***

Aisha’s tongue rolled slowly across her top lip.
“That’ll be all Brek…” she confirmed, as the official ‘coffee boy’ of DiamondX stammered out the door. She loved her job. She did it well. She was the vice-president of the company, and she relished every juicy, golden minute of it. So much opportunity. So much money. So little time.

***

Lyla was having a hard time facing herself today. Certainly, she appeared to be calm and collected on the outside. Certainly, she had all her ducks in a row. Certainly, she had everything going for her, a good career, a good education, a great boss, a good company…a promising future.
Future.

Future was something that Lyla had a hard time with. There were parts of her, which were tragically and unmercifully stuck in the past. She had tried to move them, drag them into the present, but they remained willfully stuck. Like clunky old wooden chests they refused to move very far, and most of the time she was content just to let them sit and rot in her mental attic. If they wouldn’t move, she hoped they wouldn’t open. Most of the time they didn’t. But today, something had slipped in a secret key, into one of the locks, and turned it, ever so slowly, until the lid started to come off the memory and light filled feeling poured from the widening crack like blood from a wound.

* * *

Breck shuffled into the coffee room looking as if he were the cross between a whipped dog and a guilty dirty thought. His hands shook uncontrollably as he poured the coffee for Ms.Aisha Nite. It was going to be an awfully long day.

* * *

Lyla desperately needed a break from herself for the day. She looked down at the little samples across her desk. Though she had already graduated with a double-major in Gemology and Accounting, becoming certified in the diamond trade would take further classes from an independent school, recognized for it’s superior gem-grading system, fine attention to detail, outstanding galaxy-wide reputation, corporate monopoly, and outrageous prices. But, back to the samples. There were only slight variations in color and quality in the stones, and her assignment was to line them up, in the provided 14k gold bracelet in order from most, to least valuable. Her workmanship on the prong-setting of the gems would be graded as well.

Her eyes strained under the microscope, and the tweezers barely held in her hand. She almost wished that there was more accounting work for her to do, so she wouldn’t have to fill in her time with these painstaking assignments.

But, such thinking wouldn’t get her through the course.
She sighed, then looked at her watch. She resigned to take an early lunch, and grabbed her bag on the way out the window.

* * *

The desert was truly beautiful. One of the few stunning things that had remained on Teh’viv after the taraforming accident. Five hundred years ago, the first sentient, traveling beings came here, and what they saw would have taken your breath away. It was a lush planet, richly forested and glowing green. High above the plains, the tree canopies stretched out to the giant sun, and worshipped it with their glowing leaves and swaying branches. There were no oceans above ground, but an extensive water source flowed beneath the surface of the planet, unmeasured. Hard, tangled roots reached deep down into the crust to find life giving nutrients. Sand, white and fine covered the forest floor, suggesting that the water which was now hidden bellow the earth was once above, and left geologists puzzled as to the nature of Teh’vivs evolution. Meanwhile, birds soared in the skies, the most abundant life-form on Teh’viv, not counting the insects. There were thousands of colorful species, as the entire “green-half” of the planet was in a constant tropical zone. Without a doubt, it was paradise. But it was not enough.
There was the question of the dark half of the planet, which scientists, from a previous era had concluded, held vast mineral deposits of salt, limestone and magnesium, just to name a few. It was totally uninhabited, by any known life-form. It was discovered then, that because the planet never rotated on its axis, that there were some great differences between the two halves. The dark half, was devoid of all light, heat, and even breathable atmosphere. No one quite understood why exactly, but there were no other known planets that lacked spin so totally as Teh’viv. It was a scientific marvel. A popular theory governed that because the trees and other biological life forms were only on one side of the planet, and due to the lack of spin, that the oxygen, nitrogen, carbon-dioxide and other elements consistent with a healthy, breathable atmosphere, remained there as well. But it went against other scientific common sense. Molecules mix. Gasses merge. What was keeping the boundaries so separate?

Taking a closer look at the surface, right at the edge of light and dark, scientists were astounded. It seemed as if entire great trees had been cut in half by the edge. In the darkness, they were nothing, in the light, they grew strong, however mutilated their once noble forms were by the rift of the dark.

Whatever it was, they didn’t get to examine it long.

A man by the name of Fong, who was a prominent scientific thinker in his day, developed a teraforming strategy, which would bring light to the dark side of this mysterious world. Light, he theorized, was the missing factor that kept life and friendly atmosphere from spreading all around the crust of this planet. He developed Agent Q, which when released into the black skies of Tah’viv promised to awaken it’s missing half, by transferring individual photons of light, molecule to molecule, through itself, without ill effects.

It almost worked.

The test site was eight miles from the edge, in a little known valley, at the foot of a mountain ridge, on the dark side of the planet. One hundred cubic tons of Agent Q was poured into the darkness, as onlookers quivered with the anticipation of playing God.

“Let there be light.” They whispered.

And there was dusk.

Dusk, gray, meaningless dusk, spread itself in a perfect circle around the edge, fifteen miles wide and the circumference of Teh'viv long. Then, hours later the first birds dropped out of the sky. They could no longer support their weight in the air as Agent Q had disintegrated %60 of the friendly atmosphere. Not that their wings really bothered much, as they lay suffocating to death in terrible silence far below the spaceship Sci-sol. In the next hour, every living thing on Teh’viv, sparring the trees, died of suffocation. The trees only took longer.

Soon there was nothing, but blistering heat and sun on the side of the light, and strip of gray waste around the darkness, like a great, sad sling to hold the planet up, seen even from space. Whatever boundary or border existed on the edge before, it was now either weakened or destroyed, for the dark side, in the last great act of futility gained %15 in friendly atmosphere. The planet was split between bad and worse, and it was torn apart by death.

The heavy scent of agent Q still hangs in the air over the site of it’s release to this day . . .
eight miles from the edge, in a little known valley, at the foot of a mountain ridge, where Lyla grew up.

Mr. Fong took an early retirement, and four hundred years later the Rebs arrived.

* * *

Chapter 1

2003-01-13T04:59:27Z

Lyla sat in her ergonomic chair, in her cozy green office, starring out the dark tinted window which was the entire left wall. She wanted something, something else, but she wasn’t sure what. Through the dark blue edges of the window-wall she could barely see the massive sun which kept the H’rad system in orbit, but when she looked through the clearer middle of the wall, the flat, glittering dessert skirted the building as far as the eye could see. She looked down at her samples.

Her official position, at DiamondX, gave her the professional and rather important sounding title of Chief Financial Officer. There was no end to the amount of jokes she had shared with her friends about this; being that she was the Chief Financial Officer of a company which employed a grand total of four people, and her salary was about equivalent to a well-liked high school teachers. Still, she couldn’t complain…not really, since Tasha had been so kind.

Tasha was the president of the company, and it’s reason for existence. When she was a little girl, she followed her father, who was an explorer on his quests to find the rarest and most precious of mineral deposits. To be an explorer was a thing of great honor in the H’rad system, and beyond. The word did not simply define a personality type, or yearning for adventure, it named a certain group of individuals, who were genetically and some say even spiritually marked with certain undeniable powers of ‘luck’ when it came to wealth-building geology. They also seemed able to escape the most dangerous situations, and find the least likely treasures wherever they set out to hunt. On planets where no one else survived, a true explorer would not only make it, they would come back with a gold rock the size of a boor’s head. It’s no wonder they were revered, envied and even feared in some parts of the galaxy.

One thing is known however about the explorer “gene,” it can only be passed by the females to their children, not by the males. So the children of an explorer man and a normal woman, would never have their fathers powers. Tasha did not know her mother, and her father had passed on a long time ago. Though she remembered a few of her fathers tricks from when she was a child, hopping with him from one rich planet to the next, she did not consider herself an explorer, for as far as she knew, her mother was a normal woman. She never really asked, and didn’t much care. The only love she needed, was that of her father, and her appreciation of adventure disappeared the day he died.

The lack of a mother was one thing she shared with Lyla, and it had brought her and the girl close. Not so much because she understood her orphaned pain, but because Lyla saw something in her that she thought resembled herself. Lyla, unfortunately, knew neither of her true parents, and was raised by alien teachers, nannies and social workers. To the Rebs, these were all loose terms, and more or less constituted the authority to smack the little-white-girl-child upside the head when she didn’t follow orders, or did what she was told.

The Rebs, were a working class sub-species of the Seef race, and nurturing had long been bred out of their nature. Their primary concern was with their crude mining and labor operations on the ‘dark’ side of Teh’viv. Work equaled honor, dirt equaled food, and the dark was happiness. Their whole lives were centered around the mines, to the point where they gladly took on dangerous and experimental robotic technology, by adding it into their bodies, to better perform mining tasks. Lyla remembered them as barbaric, the few things that she did remember. When she turned 10, she was considered old enough to work, and due to her fragile, human structure, was given the task of clearing mine debris with some of the lighter machinery. She was lucky that they considered her to be so weak due to her pale-skinned appearance, for Reb children began their work at 7 ½.

The job earned her a fraction of a Rebs pitifully small paycheck, but she scrounged for what she needed instead of spent, and every year took a trip to the lighter side of Teh’viv to take a class for a week or two. It was an escape to light, and an escape to the world of her imagination. There were so many subjects she dreamed of, it was hard to narrow it down to just one, one short week. It so happened, that the week of her 13th birthday, was the day she took the ‘precious gemstones’ class taught by none other then Tasha herself. She wouldn’t let her go back to the mines. Something in the dirty little girl’s eyes caught her off-guard. Something that she recognized. A familiar spark of knowledge. A hint of something extraordinary. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she didn’t want to let her go. And she didn’t.

Lyla never went back to the Reb mines, and Tasha did her part to set the girls life on a different course. She sent her to school, assisted her in life’s necessities, and paid for her education in her own chosen field, Gemology. Then she allowed her to double major in another subject that fascinated her – accounting. Through the years of counting her pennies and starring at the numbers on the bills, she had learned how much power money had, and how important it was to learn to control it, wisely. Tasha helped her find her first part-time job in school, and from then on she found her own, moving to a bigger paycheck each time. She was happy to become self-sufficient, besides the tuition, and when she finished school, she was ready for a rewarding and profitable career. Of course, she owed Tasha the world, and couldn’t sever the bond of love and loyalty that held them together by running off all by herself. DiamondX was looking for a CFO, after the last one was caught embezzling from the company.

It was hard to find anyone Tasha could un-equivocally trust, when the CFO had so much control over their assets, and DiamondX made such large profits for a company of three people, and few security controls. Naturally, Lyla was her first choice, if she would accept. She couldn’t say no, and to be fair they worked out a salary plan that “paid back” the help that Tasha paid for over the last five years. The contract stated that she was free to go after just two years because her job-market worth was now considerably greater then what the tuition and living expenses had cost. She had graduated at the top of her class and was getting some very attractive offers from large companies – which taken into account, over the next two years, minus everything she owed, gave her the salary she now earned.

So now, the most highly recruited, lowest-paid CFO on the planet, who also had the greatest relationship with her boss the system had ever seen, sat and stared out the window, wondering what that ‘something else’ was, that ached and squirmed around in the distance of her mind, yearning to be realized.