Queen's Quest

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen A Better Place To Be

"I'm…I'm not sure I understand the question," said Trick, "I thought you didn't want us to come here to Isseth, and that you really wanted us to remain on earth."

"Actually," replied queen Kolee, "It was us who thought you wished to remain of earth."

"The Morrigan" then spoke up,

"Your highness, while Trick and his people hold different views than we do, we all share a love of home…" Queen Maguire seizing the moment, snapped,

"Is this the same "home" you're so quick to plunge into war and destroy?" "The Morrigan" merely grimaced, and gave her a dirty look, but continued.

"As I was saying, we may all have our differences but earth is our home, for better or worse, but just out of curiosity, was there someplace else you had in mind?"

Queen Maguire looked at her partners then said,

"Isseth isn't the only habited planet in this galaxy. There's Pyrra, where our human friends live, then there's Proxima, but I'm sure you wouldn't care for that one, aside from scattered settlements it's primarily mountainous jungle. Oh, let's see, perhaps you might be more interested in Garian II, that's the home of the Gok's, and mostly consists of farming. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea, I'm pretty sure we'd have to come and pull you two apart sooner or later. Well let's see, how about Garesh III, that's a mining planet Arzog Station is the capitol. Admittedly, not a very pretty place but the good citizens are too busy making money to care. Well I guess that leaves just Thyra, the largest planet in our system, it's devoted to manufacturing, everything you could imagine. It's capitol is Ordura, probably pretty close to this London you come from. Races of all descriptions live there. Of all the planets it might be the closest to what you're used to back on earth."

Ciara the Faerie queen then spoke up,

"Your highness's we thank you for your kind offer but for better or worse, earth is our home as it is your ancestral home, were the planet's entire Fae population to evacuate elsewhere earth would be a much poorer world without our presence. All the legends, the stories as well as our heritage would be lost. If we've burdened you with our problems then we are truly sorry, for better or worse dealing with the humans is our problem, in a way, we are better able to deal with them than between ourselves, that…I believe is the real problem here." She stood for a moment then sat down, a moment later queen Kolee spoke up,

"Your words are well spoken, and I tend to agree, were we in your situation leaving our home forever would not be a workable option either. I suppose this begs the question "What will it take for the light and dark Fae to work together? Obviously, nothing we can do or say will have any effect on you. The desire to change must come strictly from you, It was obvious from the start your solution to your problem was to start a war with the humans and the devil take the high road. Then when we showed up certain people saw a golden opportunity to unleash superior firepower on an old enemy never mind the cost to us. And just so you know we're not singling you out "Morrigan," I have my doubts about your "lighter" side as well. It all boils down to the desire for power, power without the responsibility that goes with it. The difference between you and us is that we have grown and matured, we enjoy the benefits of coexisting with our neighbors. Now, before you go having a fit down there, yes, we are not in your situation, living under the gun so-to-speak but I believe it is possible to live your lives even under the shadow of the humans, but that's not going to work so well when your constantly at each others throats."

Queen Kolee let that sink in for a moment then added,

"Some of our advisors have been recommending that we give you all the grand tour of Isseth, and perhaps even a trip to Pyrra maybe the folks in Tinkertown will roll out the red carpet for you…Then again, maybe not. Anyway, Furgas here as well as Ambassador Shelburt like the idea, Maguire and I have our doubts however, in the spirit of cooperation, I will voice no objections. However I will warn you when you're traveling through Mythal mind your mannors, my people have been watching these proceedings on the vid and I'm told don't have a very favorable impression of you folks…You have been warned. So, we'll give it one last try, we'll send all of you out to explore Isseth in two groups but half light and half dark, I don't know, I guess it's all up to you."

"The Morrigan" then had to get in the last word,

"Is this forthcoming tour going to be passing through this Cantard place you keep threatening us with?" I thought the queen would come down on "The Morrigan" hard for that comment but instead she replied,

"Probably not, they've been watching all of you out in Mooncalled as well; no doubt you've gained a lot of supporters out there." Then she paused a moment and fixed a stare on "The Morrigan."

"We threatened you with banishment to the Cantard in the beginning before your true nature was revealed to me. Now that I understand you better I'm afraid sending you to the Cantard, I've no doubt you'd be running that place within a month then we'd have a real situation to deal with. But then, this goes back to what I was talking about earlier. There are those who would run that place with the interests of the population in mind, they would work for the betterment of the population. However, I'm afraid you would just stir things up and before you know it, we'd be facing an army marching on us from out of the Cantard. No thanks. However, some people just never seem to get it. Well, as far as I'm concerned, this hearing has achieved about all it can, hopefully each of us has learned something of the other, I certainly hope that we've given you people something to think about, and perhaps this little tour you all are about to embark on will offer insight as to what a well functioning society is capable of." With that, queen Kolee banged her gavel and declared the hearing closed.

Soon after my crew and I were back aboard the Inkara where a coven of witches held a solemn initiation ceremony for Mynce, re-instating her back into the guild as well as raising her attainment level up two levels. I've seen a lot of strange things in my career, but watching an AI cry will have to stand as the most unusual. Afterwards Jina confided in me that Mynce's soul was truly incorporated into the computer and that the Inkara was as much a living entity as ever it could be. Afterwards, Mynce's whole attitude and demeanor took on a whole different aspect, although she retained her wicked sense of humor, her behavior changed to that of a well-disciplined crew member. She had been given a second chance and she knew it, the old hates and animosities were gone, Ensign first class Mynce held our lives in her hands and took her responsibilities very seriously.

We returned to duty with the Nessa but all knew our dealings with the earthen Fae was not over yet. In fact, Captain Demlin hinted that a return to earth was imminent with the Osha coming with us as well as possibly another unnamed craft as well. But for right now, it back to the everyday routine. We did follow the tour our guests were making of Isseth their reception meeting with mixed results.

One thing about having a witch and a Pixie in your crew they always seemed to "know" the right people. Every time we had to return to Star City for whatever reason Ensign Fashar always went as well as Jina. While the media was reporting a smashingly successful tour, both were telling me another story. While not exactly being snubbed neither were they being overly welcome. Ensign Fashar told me that the pixie population was either indifferent or outright hostile to the visiting Fae. "The Morrigan's" attitude towards their queen left many an angry pixie, and anyone who knows even just a little about pixies knows you don't anger them. Fashar also mentioned something else rather curious and that was "The Nain Rouge's" treatment. According to both Jina and Fashar, she was treated like royalty. Both crewmembers confessed that perhaps everyone had been overlooking her as Ensign Fashar explained,

"There's something about that woman that's…Different. All my friends sense it as well, there's something special about her, we've all been lumping her in with the others, she never says much, stays to herself but she's got the pixie's all worked up. Ciara on the other hand doesn't seem to be causing much of a stir but I'm told that those who are up on these things are very excited and interested in her." In any event their treatment in Karenta was that of general indifference. The Elvin population of Karenta are pretty skeptical and it takes a lot to impress them, I heard that several planned speaking engagements had to be cancelled due to lack of interest. I felt badly for our guests, as their treatment wasn't warranted. I wasn't sure if Queens Kolee and Maguire suspected this might happen and the whole idea behind the tour was "payback" for the rude behavior at the hearing. Trick seemed to be the only person of interest in Dros Del Noc. Their treatment was polite but reserved, Trick, on the other hand created a lot of interest, and was always giving interviews.

The trip to Pyrra went as planned but strangely we heard nothing of it's results other than the tour seemed to end rather abruptly.

About a month later Commanders Devlin and Giyax called a special commanders meeting, when they announced,

"People…We're headed back to earth," no one was really surprised.

According to the plan I and my crew would be responsible for the return of our guests back to earth, however a new element was being added, the Osha would be transporting a portable space station that would be based on the planet Mars for the purpose of monitoring earth communications as well as making observations using a special telescope that would orbit the planet. Another craft, the "Abbai" would be transporting a special underwater craft that also had the ability to into space where it could either be off-loaded for travel to earth or be picked up. It was quite a unique craft and although I knew of it from articles I'd read it was generally based at Bal Sara though sometimes at the base near Barkesh. We were all sworn to secrecy, the earthen Fae were to know nothing of it's presence, once conditions were right, the submersible called the "Dreena" would fly to the earth's surface, and submerge with orders to seek the location of lfheimr and determine if there was anything of any value located there. This was a very secretive mission we were not to be informed of any details concerning the Dreena, it's crew or it's exact mission other than it would be searching for traces of our ancient home.

The only relationship the Nessa would have with the Abbai was to offer protection, and support should that be necessary. We were informed that the Dreena would be operating under strict radio silence and would be able to avoid any and all human scanning devices, this sounded like a tall order but I just followed orders it wasn't my responsibility.