My name is Marcus Moon, and I am not who I used to be. I lost my parents at an early age, too young to even remember them, and grew up in an orphanage. I came of age in a corrupted system that told me what to do for nearly all of my eighteen years of life. They even had me working part time for the last few years, to pay for staying there, and gave me an allowance out of my own paycheck. It grated on my nerves; but, since I was viewed as kind of brat by the people that ran the place, I couldn't complain about it without getting into more trouble.
When I graduated high school, I had saved up enough of my allowance to afford a short trip to go on holiday in another country before I had to start community college in the fall. Unfortunately, some unknown group decided that the bus my tour group was using was the perfect target for their plans. After they ran us off the road and killed anyone that was too outspoken, like the bus driver, only six of us remained. There were three men and two young women with me, and we were blindfolded and taken god knows where.
Our wrists were always bound; but, we were never gagged. We were warned to not speak and none of us were stupid enough to test their resolve. We were beaten regularly and filmed, so that they could have propaganda videos to show off their superiority over us. That part didn't bother me too much, since I had gotten some beatings as a child from the other kids in the orphanage and kind of knew what to expect. What did bother me was that while we were detained, a few of the men holding us had tried to sexually assault the poor girls.
The first time I tried to interfere, they beat me nearly to death for stopping their fun. They had used up a lot of their energy and were upset that they hadn't filmed my beating, which was my intent, because they forgot about using the girls. The second time they tried, I taunted them and said that they couldn't get any women on their own and had to resort to kidnapping. I'm using the polite phrasing, by the way.
They didn't like that much and beat me almost as bad as the last time, and they even remembered to bring the camera this time and filmed it. It was one of their most watched videos they had shared and posted for the world to see, and they never realized that it wasn't because of the beating. It was because I was smiling the whole time.
We were kept for seven months and constantly moved around from place to place, and I begged over and over to see their leader so I could offer him a deal. I was laughed at the whole time, until at the last place someone had overheard me and took me seriously.
It was the leader!
He had guessed, quite correctly, that I was the troublemaker of the group and always caused his men a fuss. After taking me to another room and talking for hours, with some hard negotiating on my part, he finally agreed to the deal. It would secure the other's freedom, and they would get a willing participant in their next series of videos. In essence, I traded my life for theirs, because I knew how it was going to end.
My only condition was that I see the other captives on live television being returned to their families. After I was returned to the cell with the others, it took several days for the arrangements to be made and the others were gagged and blindfolded and taken away. I sighed in relief after that, and two days later, I was brought to a room with a chair, a table, and a television.
No one spoke as the leader came in and turned on the television. It was a live news broadcast and I saw the hostages being delivered to their families, then saw their horror as I wasn't among them and they realized I had stayed behind. The leader had the camera set up and said a long speech about rights and infringement, and how I had submitted to his authority and agreed to their punishment. All I could do was laugh in my head at his pompousness.
It was then that I felt something.
It was just a tingle at first, that started at the base of my skull, then it spread down my spine. I was strangely calm and didn't let them know something felt odd, in case they had injected me with something. I suspected this was the case as the torture started and I didn't really feel it. I thought it was weird when they removed my fingernails with pliers and I didn't react, and the men were surprised that I didn't flinch at the mutilation. It still hurt like crazy; but, with their painkillers, I wasn't bothered by it very much and kept relatively quiet. They kept going and left my fingers bloody and mangled, then they moved on to my feet. That wasn't as pleasant of an experience for me and that made them happy.
After three hours of taking everything they could do to me, my whole body tingled. They became bored and one of the men hefted a machete above his head. All I could do to spite them was to give them a big smile. Enraged, the man swung at my neck. I felt a brief moment of pain, surprisingly much less than the rest of what had happened to me, and then nothing.
*
When I came back to myself, I couldn't open my eyes and my whole body still tingled. I wasn't sure what was going on, because I could hear and feel a deep rumbling thump-thump and I was in some kind of liquid. I lost consciousness several times for an unknown amount of time, then I felt immense pressure around me and the liquid drained away.
I was suffocating!
I wiggled and kicked and tried my best to get out of whatever it was I was inside, and then I was out. Someone stuck their finger in my mouth and I threw up on them, then I tried to scream at them. It came out as a shrill baby's cry and a manly laugh greeted me.
“Ahahaha! The little guy has quite the voice on him, and just out of the womb!”
I kept crying, because I realized I had just been born. Oh, my god! I'm a baby!
“Lokend, please.” A woman's voice pleaded.
“Sorry, Aida.” Lokend said and quickly wiped me down and cleaned me off, then wrapped me in a small swaddling blanket and handed me to my mother.
“My sweet Aaron.” Aida said and cooed at me.
My crying slowed as my body's constant tingling changed slightly and I felt her love. I stopped crying completely and I tried to open my eyes. My hands didn't quite work yet and I tried to wipe at my face. She felt my desperation, so she took a damp cloth and wiped my face and eyes. That removed the last crusty obstructions that had glued my eyes shut and I blinked my eyes at her.
If I had had enough air, I would have gasped at how lovely she was. She had long golden wavy hair and chiselled cheekbones, her ears were slightly pointed, her lips were the perfect kind for kissing, and her eyes were a shimmering sapphire blue. She felt my shock at her beauty, and her love for me grew. She felt my hunger pang as if it were her own, and she slid me down slightly and opened her robe. I made a small squeak at the reveal of her perfect breast, and my father chuckled.
“He's a keen judge of that already?” Lokend asked. “That's my boy!”
“Q-quiet, Lokend.” Aida said with a deep blush as she stared at me. “Go ahead, Aaron. They are all for you.”
I looked at her for only a moment more, then eagerly started to suckle and tasted her delicious mother's milk. Aida sighed as she felt my happiness at being fed, and she relaxed as the med-bot tended to her lower area and applied the healing gel.
“How much of a head-start do we have?” Aida asked.
“A few hours.” Lokend said as he rubbed his chin through his short and well-trimmed beard. “We had to drop out of hyperspace to have the power available for the med-bot.”
“Can we still make the rendezvous?”
“I've got the computer running the calculations now.” Lokend said. “Once you're tended to, we should have the proper jump coordinates for a quick pass at the Shara Nebula.”
Aida closed her eyes. “I hate having to use such dangerous shortcuts.”
Lokend leaned in and gave her a quick kiss. “My dear, that's all we can use to stay out of The Order's sights.”
Aida sighed. “Do you think...”
“Don't worry. We have friends still.” Lokend said. “We'll keep Aaron out of their grasp.”
“I hope so.” Aida said as she opened her eyes and looked down at me. I stared up at her as I kept feeding and she felt my gratitude for wanting to keep me safe.
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“We'll do everything we can to prepare you, my beautiful son.” Aida said and used a finger to rub my forehead. It was so soothing that I didn't feel the increase in the tingles I felt as I fell asleep.
I woke up sometime later in my mother's arms and opened my eyes, only to see that we were inside a ship's cockpit. I had suspected the technology was more advanced when my father had mentioned the med-bot; but, I never suspected that it would be this advanced. I wasn't a tech guy in my old life, and even if I was, I doubt that I could identify anything that my little baby eyes could see.
“Don't feel dismayed, Aaron.” Aida said. “You'll learn all of this in time.” She felt my surprise, and she chuckled. “You're of my body, Aaron. I can feel you no matter where you are.”
I was completely comforted by those words and in that moment, accepted her completely as my mother. She felt the change in my emotions as my heart opened up to her, and I felt her surprise as a deep connection formed between us.
“I love you, too.” Aida said and hugged me close and kissed my forehead.
For the next few months, I listened and learned a lot about the situation my parents were in. They were called 'rogues' and were on the run from an organization called The Order, because they refused to follow their archaic rules and regulations. If they had listened, they never would have fallen in love or gotten together and had me. I was grateful for that, because I loved my mother very much and I couldn't have asked for a better set of parents.
It took me almost a year to adjust to my new body and learn how to walk again. I know that sounds surprising; but, the balance was off and I was a lot shorter than I used to be. While I tried to get myself mobile, I discovered an underlying tone of fear in nearly all of my mother's and father's conversations. It wasn't until I was almost two that I managed to say my first word without it being garbled. Good god, it was frustrating not being able to talk properly.
“MOM!” I exclaimed loudly from my play spot on the floor, and Aida caught her breath. I had startled her.
“Aaron! You scared me!”
“Mom!” I said and carefully stood up by myself and waddled over to her. She sat at a console station and I reached her and pat her leg, then I held my arms up for her to pick me up.
“Oh, all right.” Aida said with a smile and picked me up. “I was going to take a break anyway.”
“Mom!” I said and hugged her neck tightly and kissed her. “Mom!”
“Yes, I'm your mother.” Aida said with a laugh.
“What's the ruckus?” Lokend asked as he came into the compartment.
“Mom!” I exclaimed.
“Haha! Of course she's your first word.” Lokend said. “You love her as much as I do.”
“Mo...mo... more!” I exclaimed my second word, and they laughed.
Now that I could talk, even in such a limited fashion, my training began. Since my body was insufficient for most things, they started with my basic knowledge. After several trial lessons as they determined how much I could understand, they started telling me everything. Not about our predicament, I mean about everything.
I sure was surprised when they told me that there was an all-encompassing power called the Presence. I didn't want to believe it at first, since it was such a weird concept, then my mother told me all the various ways that it could manifest in someone... one of which claimed that it can sometimes manifest as a very light tingling near the base of the skull.
I had to believe her after that. She told me that everything had the Presence in it, since it was the very fabric that the universe was made from. It encompassed us, surrounded us, and flowed through us, because we were a part of the universe as well. I found that a little hard to believe, until she started to explain. I blinked my eyes at the description of how their scholars and researchers had researched both physical and mystical means to discover the truth about how everything had come into being, and the comparison to the big bang theory was not lost on me. She felt my understanding of the underlying principles, and smiled.
Aida showed me the necklace that she wore at all times and it had a locket on it. “This has the most precious thing to me inside it. It is my heart and my soul, and it never leaves my skin.” She said. “When you're old enough, I'll show you what's inside.”
I nodded, and my education continued for another year. Just as my mother kept telling me, my 'cute little brain' absorbed the knowledge like a sponge. I was actually eager for my lessons, to the delight of my mother, because she had been worried that I wouldn't want to learn anything more than the basics. When I reached my third birthday, she had finally managed to wean me from suckling milk from her breast. I was very reluctant to give it up, since it still tasted delicious and her breasts were the most perfect ones I had ever seen.
Once I had given it up, they determined that I could be successfully taught a family meditation technique that would let me feel more of the Presence, because I was no longer so physically dependent on my mother. I still felt the loss of the intimacy with her, as did she; but, once I had learned the technique after several months of practice, I could feel the emotional bond between Aida and myself grow from my sole dependency upon her into more of a mutual dependency where we needed each other in almost equal measure.
Lokend had thought the change in my emotional state had happened a little too quickly than he thought it should have, and it worried him a little. At the time, I didn't really have the words to explain what my mother and father had meant to me after taking care of me and loving me like they did. Little did I realize that I never would get the chance to explain everything properly.
We had hopped from space stations to space ports, from settlements to outposts, for as long as I had been on the ship. Aida or Lokend had always stayed on board to look after me as the other went for supplies, or even just picked their orders up. We traded for goods and services along the way, and I was starting to get a handle on some of the more physical techniques that my mother had taught me. She had me use a wooden sword for some reason, since I thought I would be using a laser gun like what my father wore on his hip.
On my fourth birthday, our small ship docked for normal maintenance at a small station near a super-giant gas planet. My father had postponed it for far too long and had used the ship's communication array to call ahead. He arranged for the port authority to get the maintenance bots ready to check everything over and to fix any problems they found.
“I'll be back with enough supplies for the next leg of our journey.” Lokend said, kissed Aida and gave me a hug, then left when the hatch opened. Several bots came in and scoured the place, looking for any stress fractures, warping, or any kind of damage that could happen to a ship during space flight. After half an hour, my father hadn't returned and I felt Aida's worry. He had never been gone longer than twenty minutes, and despite her husband's expressed warnings, she took out her locator beacon and activated it.
“What is he doing all the way over... argh!” Aida grunted and put a hand over her heart. “N-no.” She said and picked me up. “Aaron, no matter what, don't leave this compartment.”
“But...”
Aida opened up one of the side compartment doors where we kept our blankets. With one hand reached in, touched the stack of blankets, and moved the whole thing as if it was one object. She ignored my surprise at the new technique and stuffed me into the empty compartment.
“No time to explain. Lay down and use the Hide technique.” Aida said and I quickly did as she said. The flow of Presence around me slowed and drifted away, as if I wasn't there, and she smiled. “Good boy.” She said and stuffed the stack of blankets on top of me. “I love you, Aaron.”
“I lo-” My words were cut off as she shut the compartment's door and hit the seal button. I felt the air circulation cut off and realized what she had done. With no air flow, the red telltale light would be on and no one would even consider that someone would be inside. Since I was so small, I had plenty of air to last me several hours before I would start to suffocate. I knew what she wanted me to do next, so I started my meditation technique to calm myself down, and let the flow of Presence inside my own body slow down as well. The less it moved, the less oxygen I would need to stay alive.
I started counting in my head and waited quietly. I waited for quite some time, and heard several sets of feet pass by my hiding space. I never reacted to them, since I knew that the maintenance bots didn't wear shoes and that they were searching the ship for something. My count was up to just over 3,000 Mississippi, or almost an hour later, when I felt a wrenching pain in my heart.
“MOM!” I yelled and shook myself out of my mediation and tried to push the blankets out of the way to reach the door. They were jammed in and I couldn't reach around or through them to touch the quick release button on the door. With all my extra movements and heavy breathing, I could almost feel the oxygen being used up. I started to pant to try and catch my breath; but, it wasn't working. I started to remember being held in that little cell in my previous life and how I had been tortured, and I felt a surge of tingles go down my spine.
“Mom!” I said and thought about the technique she had used. I concentrated on doing the same thing and focused on the flow of Presence around me. I held my breath to stop distracting myself and made a mental image in my head about making a box of energy around the blankets. It took only a few seconds; but with no air, it felt like an eternity. I felt the box become solid and pushed with both my hands and with the Presence.
I was surprised at the sound of wrenching metal, then the blankets were hurled out of my way and across the hallway. The compartment's door and the blankets slammed into the wall, and I ignored the loud bang that the door had made when it hit. I slid out of the compartment and when my feet hit the floor, I ran through the small ship and into my parents bedroom. I had been in here several times as my father had stored his weapons, and I jumped up onto the bed easily.
My body was using the flow of the Presence almost automatically as I ran across the bed to the headboard. I hit the false panel to reveal the keypad and typed in the security code, and when it opened, I didn't see my father's backup laser pistol like I had hoped. What I saw were two short cylinders with buttons on the sides and they were tied together on a cord. The objects were nearly identical, except that one was slightly more slender and long. With nothing else to take, I grabbed the cord with both cylinders on it and tied it around my waist. It looped three times before I could tie it safely without it falling off of my slender body.
I looked back into the hiding place and saw several sheets of papers, two credit chips with no denomination markings, and some kind of passkey. I quickly stored the items into my tiny pockets and closed the false panel and heard it click, then rolled off of the bed and ran to the doorway. I couldn't see or hear anyone, so I took a deep breath and used the Walk Silent technique. I wasn't actually walking silently, all the technique did was use the Presence to push the sound down and away from where it could be heard.
I hadn't been taught that technique. I had learned it on my own as I used it at night to sneak onto my parent's bed, so I could snuggle with my mother. She was always amused that I would leave my own bed to stay with her and she never once complained that I was abusing the ability.
I quickly and silently moved through the ship towards the hatch and fully intended to go looking for my mother, when the hatch opened and derailed my plan. I ducked around the corner and peered out, and saw something that surprised me.
It was an alien.