Queen's Quest

Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

It wasn't long before "The Morrigan," and Trick requested a meeting with me, apparently, my disinterest in them was causing concern. Therefore, as we neared earth Malcanthet and I sat and listened to, "The Morrigan" complain that no one was paying any attention to her.

"I know you have no interest in our problems anymore commander," she began, "Your leaders left us no illusions concerning that fact, but you could at least have a little common courtesy to see to our needs and be civil."

"Are you getting three meals a day?"

"Yes, but…"

"I take it your quarters are reasonably comfortable?"

"Yes…"

"Then you've got nothing to complain about," I replied, your getting a free ride home, Malcanthet here is going to try and offer advice, maybe help you make something of your situation, at least you're going to have someone from the outside look things over and make recommendations, you can't ask for any better than that."

""I see disgust in your eyes commander," added Trick, "You people are all on some moral "high horse" looking down on us, you live in the perfect society, but it was your ancestors who took the easy way out, and fled earth, now you rub our noses in your "holier than thou," attitude angry at us for not being just like you. Well, our ancestors stuck it out, down through the centuries they survived, they endured, now your stupid royalty isn't happy with the way we turned out, well I say "f**k them, f**k 'em up the ass!"

I showed no outward reactions, only turning to Malcanthet and remarking,

"Do you suppose there's any place where there might still be a bunch of ogres lurking?" Malcanthet shrugged,

"I think there might be a few left in the Cantard; I know I saw some when I was there, why?"

"Maybe we could round them up ship them here to earth and let them find out what real adversity is like."

"Wouldn't work," she said shaking her head, "They are too settled, the ones that are still there all have cozy little operations going for themselves, they're reasonably content, we don't bother them, they don't bother us, besides, they'd probably end up running things and make a bad situation even worse."

"Yeas, you're probably right," I replied.

"Well look, I'm sorry you all feel that way about our leaders, I think they're all sorry they even began this little adventure, but there it is…Deal with it, we'll be landing in a couple of days, do you want to return to where we picked you up at?"

"No," replied the two, "There's a place north of London where we can contact our people to come and pick us up, we'll show you."

Shortly afterwards we went to cloaked and silent running mode to avoid earth's vast array of devices scanning the heavens for anything in space or the air. I chose the early morning to set down and discharge our passengers, Trick told me there was a settlement a little over a mile away where they had friends who would see to it they all got back home. As she was leaving I said to Kendi,

"Sorry you didn't find OZ."

"Oh but I did," she happily replied.

Malcanthet as the last to leave,

"Be very careful Malcanthet," I warned, "we'll be monitoring your call signal just try to get to an isolated area where we can pick you up if there's trouble."

"Meh, I don't think that will be necessary," she replied, "The Morrigan" is worried about me, but I've dealt with types like her before, plus my powers are much more heightened than hers, a fact I've kept well hidden. My first task will be to contact these Leprechaun's they keep talking about, see what's up with them, then help Brie deal with her problems, as well as finding out if succubi could actually operate here." I smiled and replied,

" Well, truth be told, I have mixed feelings about you and your race, however your one of "us" and I'd hate to loose you for this worthless mob, it just isn't worth it." Malcanthet gave me a curious look, squeezed my hand in another unusual gesture replying,

"Don't worry commander, I'm a survivor, and quite frankly, things have been rather boring for me lately, I'm due for some excitement." With that, she walked down the ramp towards the group of Fae who were waiting for her. We didn't waste any time in taking off, and were soon climbing to the sky where we took up a high orbit over the earth as we waited for the Abbai.

Since both of us were cloaked and in silent running mode, we communicated using a very high frequency form of particle beam transmissions we called the "star web." You had to be within the line of sight to use it, but we knew the humans had nothing even approaching it so it became our preferred method of communication. Shortly the Frala joined us as we positioned ourselves over earth's North Polar Region for our final descent. As per the plan, the Frala went in first as she was carrying the storm wardens who would create a major weather calamity to cover the Abbai as she released the Dreena through a large hole melted in the ice shield. Storms didn't bother craft such as ours but from our information, they would ground all human aircraft. About an hour later, a massive storm front began to develop over the polar region sweeping down towards what our guests had indicated was the Baltic Sea. Supposedly this was early summer down on the planet according to information so sudden drops in temperature, snow, freezing rain as well as all manner of weather anomalies started coming out of the north. We had nobody on board who could translate the communications coming in from earth as they did on the Abbai and the Frala.

Lieutenant Geardot was constantly monitoring and reporting all that was going on, because of the storm, we had limited scanner visibility although the signatures of the other craft were constantly recorded. Although most of our monitoring efforts were automatic, Mynce had her hands full following up on our requests in determining where everybody was. She spoke not a word, but I knew she was really doing yeoman's work with secondary operations. Finally, word came from the Abbai that the Dreena had been launched and was successfully away; we accompanied her back into orbit over earth while the Frala remained on the ice pack to assist the Dreena if she called for help. Once we were safely back in orbit, I received a communiqué from the Abbai indicating the launch had gone better than expected, all radio traffic in that area had been jammed, and along with the storm the humans were none the wiser to what had happened, although according to the communications officer aboard the Abbai, military and civilian authorities in the area were in a panic over what had happened.

When we discussed the matter later on, Jina laughed and said,

"Even though there's only a low level magical force on earth, those storm wardens were able to perform with greater effectiveness than we had expected. The guild sent two of the best and it certainly paid off."

Jina also explained how the storm wardens created the incredible storm, and what she thought about the human's reaction to it. As she was talking, a thought struck her stopping her in mid sentence.

"Something just occurred to me," she exclaimed. "Those storm wardens didn't seem to have any problems calling down a massive storm, I wonder why "The Morrigan" was the only one who seems to have any ability to create, even though the Garuda was nothing but pure evil, it was still a magical creation, now that I think of it, I don't recall ever seeing Ciara, "The Nain Rouge," or even Trick actually create anything from magic."

"I thought it was because earth had such a low level of magical force as say, compared to Isseth," I replied.

Compared to our homeworld it is low, very low, but those wardens didn't have any trouble whipping up that storm, and "The Morrigan," certainly created a monster we damn near couldn't defeat."

Jina thought a moment then said,

"Something isn't right, it's not right, something we were all blind to, commander, I think Malcanthet is in serious danger, I think "The Morrigan has lulled all of us into a blindness that has put everyone into danger, we need to return to the Nessa I can't do this alone, we're going to need every available guild member we can scrape up." I still wasn't "getting it," so I asked Jina,

Call me dense Jina, but what is it I'm missing?"

"It's quite possible "The Morrigan" has all the others under some sort of trance or spell, at the very least a threat of some kind, we were played for fools, I'm torn between going back and picking up Malcanthet but she's no doubt gone with them."

I alerted both the Abbai as well as the Frayla not to respond to any transmissions or calls for help even from me unless a special coded password was used, I was preparing to return to the Nessa and for them to hold their positions. We were preparing to depart earth when Mynce alerted me to a coded message coming in, since there were no secrets aboard this ship; I had her read the message.

"Danger…Danger…It's a trap, Morrigan has played us for fools…I am in hiding…Morrigan hunting for me…Attempting to reach location disclosed to you…Do not attempt to locate or rescue…Will only draw her…Warn others…Will contact later…M."

"This tears it," I said to the crew, "That was Malcanthet, she may or may not have others with her, as I don't think she could get to Ireland, which is where these Leprechaun's are that she told me she wanted to meet with." Mynce then spoke,

"Commander, earlier, I took the liberty of researching scans of what is known as England and Ireland, England is composed of Scotland and Wales making it a rather large landmass roughly the size of Isseth. Ireland and Northern Ireland are extremely large as well; It will be rather difficult to locate Malcanthet should you wish to do that."

"No," I replied, Malcanthet is right, our presence would draw "The Morrigan" and her people, or alert the humans, Mynce, send a transcript of this message to Commander Lungdil, as well as my decision, let's get back to the Nessa right away."