Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 8 (Droit Du Seigneur) Part 2
 
 
 
     “The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.”  Sigmund Freud
 
 
There were a dozen things that happened in the moments just after Lynnette Parker’s crew had boarded Freyja’s Privilege, the lightning harvester belonging to Ragnar, the sworn leader of the entire Norse regiment.
 
And none of them were particularly pleasant.
 
First; the storm whipped itself up to a legendary degree, which caught the small ship off guard for a half second, as she was still positioned to onboard passengers and not to buffer against the onslaught of the 300 mph winds, that were gusting from all directions.
 
Second; a power failure in one of the ionization channels within the harvester itself caused several tense moments of panic, as lightning strike after lightning strike hit the ship, threatening to overload all of the other channels.
 
Which would have blown them all sky-high.
 
Thankfully there was a team of highly experienced flyers onboard who were all able to pitch in and lend an experienced hand at the last minute.
 
Third; they were unexpectedly boarded by the UN Special Investigation’s Unit during this fiasco.
 
And from there… it all devolved into utter chaos.
 
“I’m not going in,” Lynnette told the two large figures dressed in the tight-fitting jet-black airsuits.
 
“You have not been cleared to make inways with the harvesters.  As a matter of All Nations Security we are taking you in for questioning, on orders of the Acting Deputy Director,” the smaller of the two said in a voice that was amplified by his suit.
 
“Acting?  What happened to Sorel?” Lynnette asked, suddenly taken aback by the sudden change in power within the UN.
 
“Former Deputy Director Gavin Sorel was assassinated a few hours ago on the steps of the Senate,” the taller one said.
 
“Stabbed in the back,” his partner added, with a sneer.
 
Lynnette swallowed hard at the loss of her last ally within the corrupt organization.  Because while Sorel hadn’t been of much help lately, with his hands tied by the various interworkings of an organization that had been designed all along not to work, he at least hadn’t posed much of a threat.
 
“And who is the Acting Deputy Director?” Bruce asked, coming to stand directly behind the woman he had vowed to her ex-husband to protect at all cost, for a very handsome fee.
 
“Buford Pitt is the Acting Deputy Director, signed in an hour ago,” the shorter man stated, as he pulled a set of electronic cuffs from his belt.
 
“It’s a good thing you’re already in your airsuit, ma'am,” he told Lynnette, as he approached her with the cuffs.
 
However, that’s just when a second landing party hit, and a second channel blew within the harvester’s collection grid, causing the ship to instantly begin to fall from the air.
 
“Down!” Ragnar yelled, as he raced past them.  “Down!  We’ve got to shut the plasma coil down now, or we’ll all blow!” he screamed, as he threw an oversized wrench at Benny and pulled him with him towards an open hatch.
 
Bruce, on the other hand, was preoccupied with the new landing party, which consisted of a large avian alien and another UN security officer dressed in an all-black airsuit.
 
“What’s the meaning of this now?” he bellowed, as the two new arrivals came in through the already blown air-hatch.
 
The two original UN Security officers turned then, but just as the shorter one raised his hand to interfere, he was shot in the chest by the newly arrived officer.
 
And a half-second later the large avian alien with the blue-black feathers decapitated the other one.
 
“What the fuck?” Bruce began in a staggered voice, as his mind raced to collect his thoughts. 
 
Meanwhile, Lynnette dropped to the ground and grabbed the laser pistol off of the shorter UN officer’s belt, as he lay bleeding out on the floor.
 
However, she didn’t have time to do anything with it, because just then a huge lightning strike hit the ship and sent them all flying; first one way, and then the other, and at one point Lynnette almost went flying out the open airlock.
 
Only, the nine-foot-tall alien that looked strangely like a Cassowary grabbed her with a feathered wing and held her fast until the ship was once again righted.
 
“What the fuck was that?” Bruce screamed, and then a second later all of the channels within the harvester sprang back into vibrant life.  All of them glowing brightly, as the ship took a second to right itself, and then slowly climb in altitude.
 
“Whew!” Ragnar said, as he raced back into the room to check the numbers on his control panel.
 
“We almost went up like a banshee scream.  Now, what’s all this?” he asked, turning with a smile and a rather large hand-cannon aimed directly at the large bird-like-man.
 
“Don’t worry,” the second officer said then, as he removed his helmet and put up his hands.
 
“Missed you, shorty,” he said with a smile to the much shorter redhead who was still being held in the wings of the large alien.
 
“Oh my god, Rory, you fucking idiot, what are you doing?” Lynnette screamed, as she raced over to her son and pulled him into her arms.
 
“I’m here on orders of my sister,” he told his mother, after he ruffled the hair on the top of her head.
 
“She wants you to back off.  She knows you’re looking for her, and she wants you to stop.”
 
“Rory, you can’t be serious.  When did you speak to her, what is she doing?  How is the baby?”
 
Her redheaded son smiled and then looked sad for a moment, and then he asked to speak to his mother alone.
 
“She’s fine, she’s just about to give birth,” the middle-aged man said, just as soon as his mother had taken a seat on the bed.
 
“How are you in touch?  I’ve been trying for so long…” Lynnette said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
 
“She got in touch with me through Timothy, and their connection.  But mom… you should know… the child is gifted,” her son said quite sullenly.
 
“We always knew it would be.”
 
“They won’t let her go now.”
 
“No, they won’t.
 
“So what, you take control of some harvesters and then you go to war with the Ides?”
 
“First we save the planet, then we stop a criminal organization with zero oversight.”
 
“And Hadley?”
 
“We have the same goal.”
 
“Yes, but wildly different ideas on how to make it a reality.”
 
“Your sister is a dreamer.  She always has been,” the woman told her son, as they sat together on Ragnar’s bed.
 
“Gee,” her son said, as he picked up her much smaller hand and held it in his own.
 
“Wonder where she got that from.”
 
Lynnette smiled, and then frowned, and for a second wanted to burst into tears and fall into her son’s arms and let him make it all okay.  He was a full-grown man after all, and the President of Wales, for fuck’s sake.
 
“We’ve sure come a long way since New Mexico, eh?” he asked then, with a smile, and suddenly Lynnette was extremely glad she hadn’t succumbed to her weaker self.
 
“Yes, we sure have,” she told him with a weak smile that was full of so much love it leaked from her pores.
 
“And what about this Ragnar?” he asked, because honestly, her kids knew her far better than anyone.
 
“What about him?” she asked.
 
“Your first love… that’s gotta sting.  Especially after your little battle at the UN,” he reminded her.
 
“I won in the end,” she reminded her loyal son who always had her back.
 
“Yes.  In some ways you did,” he allowed, giving her as much of the win as possible.
 
Because it did no good to feel worse in times like these…
 
“I loved him once, more than anything on earth.  But not anyone.  I always loved you and your sister more.  And both of you are exactly why I’m doing this,” she told him truthfully, as she was always truthful with her kids.
 
“We know.  But I think Hadley is right on this one.  Nothing will be solved by going to war.”
 
“No, but… there’s more to it than that.”
 
“Oh?” her son asked.
 
“The Ides are invoking droit du seigneur.”
 
“What?  That doesn’t even make sense.  With who?  How?”
 
“Every planet they land on is theirs – the mineral and water rights, that is.  For one-hundred-years they get to rape its resources, before anyone else can claim anything on it.”
 
“That’s… they can’t lay claim to planets they haven’t even been to yet?  How could they?” he asked, as he stood and paced towards the door.
 
“You know of the lifeboats their building?” Lynnette asked of her son in a hushed whisper.
 
“Yes,” he answered with a bit of a shocked expression on his face.
 
“They are all under the complete control of the Ides.  And to get onboard you’ll have to sign a waver that gives them dominion over every planet they make landfall on.  No matter who settles there.  If the Ides plant their flag they own it.”
 
“Just like the fucking British…” her son said bitterly, as he let out a huge sigh.
 
“Yes… it seems the apple has not fallen far from the proverbial tree.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 8 (Droit Du Seigneur) Part 1
 
 
 
     “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”  Ernest Hemingway
 
 
 
 
“There’s a problem with Sorel’s suit.”
 
“We don’t have time for problems.”
 
“He’s got no air.”
 
“Tell him to launch anyway.”
 
“Pardon me?”
 
“Look, this ship’s gonna explode in three minutes.  So, he’s got exactly that long to either learn how to hold his breath, or sort out his suit.  One minute to get clear of the blast,” General Alexander Northman told his second in command.
 
“He’ll die…” his second said, as she watched her leader jump from the falling airship.
 
“Tell everyone to jump now,” she said then, into her radio, in a steadier voice than she ever thought possible.
 
“What about Sorel?” a female member of the crew asked.
 
“Everyone jumps now.  That’s an order,” the short redhead told her crew – just before she too launched through the opening the hostile landing party had made.
 
“Sorel,” she said, as she fell, “point your suit at my beacon.  I’ve got just what you need.”
 
Sorel, a man that was twice her size and yet not nearly as confident, did as he was commanded, and launched from his spot on the crippled research vessel.
 
“Everyone’s in the air,” another voice said, just as Lynnette spotted the large Sorel racing towards her.
 
“Good,” she said with a small satisfied smile, as she continued to slow her descent until the man who had entrusted his life to her caught up with her.
 
When he reached her, he was red in the face and his eyes were severely bloodshot.
 
“Hold on, one more second,” the small woman said, as she reached around and unhooked her air-tank from her own suit.  “I’ve got ya.  I’ve got just what ya need,” she cooed at the man, who had gone limp in her arms, as together they spiraled down towards the ground.
 
Then, with a whoosh, as the air pumped back into his suit, the man suddenly came back alive, as he gulped greedily at the incoming air.
 
“You remember how this goes?” the small woman asked, her facemask pressed tightly to her subordinate's.
 
“When you get to eight-thousand-feet your chute will open.  If it doesn’t, pull this.  You got that?” Lynnette asked, as she demonstrated just where on the man’s suit he could find his altimeter and parachute cord.
 
With a sharp nod, the man took a hard look at the woman who had just handed over her oxygen.
 
“Don’t worry,” she said, after seeing the look on his face, and just before she pushed off from him and made a mad dive with full thrusters straight at the ground, “this is what I was born to do.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.
 

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 7 (Freyja’s Privilege) Part 2
 
 
 
     “No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.”  Calvin Coolage
 
 
 
 
“A man of honor lives by a set of codes,” the short redheaded man said with a sudden star-burst of a smile, as he grabbed Lynnette up in his arms and gave her an enormous hug.
 
“And those codes forbid me from holdin' any sort of grudge, ya?” the well-muscled man with the very impressive mustache said with a rotund laugh Lynnette felt in her chest, even after he let her go.
 
“Good.  I was worried you’d still be upset,” the small woman said of the man she loved more than anything on earth.  Though she could not stand him by an equal degree.
 
“Oh, I’m upset.  That you bested me.  But not upset that I lost,” he told her, truthfully, and it cost him nothing to say it.  Because honestly the man had laid so many demons to rest that small one seemed almost insignificant amongst the rest.
 
“You know, I would never have done it, if it hadn't been to save lives,” she told him, because it was the truth.
 
“A woman with honor lives by a set of codes…” the man said, as he stroked his smooth chin. 
 
“Where do ya think I learned it from?” he asked, with a somewhat painful smile, though the darkness faded from his amber eyes extremely fast.
 
“So, the rest of my crew is welcome aboard?” she asked, in a bit of a rush, as the storm was whipping up quite a frenzy even as she spoke.
 
“Yeah, I don’t mind hearing what ya have ta say,” the man told her with another somewhat pain-filled expression.  “Though, ya better get them over here quick, I can feel a massive discharge brewing.  And any minute now we’re gonna see a storm - for the history books.”
 
“They’ve all been ‘storms for the history books’ as of late,” Lynnette told him, with a painfilled smile of her own.  And then she radioed for the rest of her party to follow.
 
“It was brave, you know, what you did,” Ragnar told the woman he’d destroyed financially, emotionally, and spiritually – more than once.
 
“You gave me no choice.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

​Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 7 (Freyja’s Privilege) Part 1
 
 
     “Reclaim that which was stolen.”  Exe
 
 
 
“Even with the Catholics, and the Russians, and the Chinese, and the Wolves, by my calculations you’re still short.  By what? Twenty-thousand harvesters.  Because if you want to circumvent the entire planet – which is the only way this plan works, mind you, you’re gonna need twenty-thousand more,” Elu said, as the small group sat and discussed the redhead’s plan.
 
“Yes, we’re still short - nineteen-thousand harvesters,” the pale woman said with a smile, a sad sorta smile that spoke of too much heartbreak to elaborate just then.
 
And so she got up and went outside, and stood on the balcony that overlooked the South Pacific ocean far-far below.
 
“You mean to ask him, don’t you?” Elu asked a moment later, as she came to stand by the much smaller woman’s side.
 
“Yes, though this is not how I would have had it.  Not at all,” Lynnette said, through a thick rush of tears.
 
Elu, the elegant Zulu warrior woman of much local legend, put a comforting hand on the older woman’s back.
 
“He will fight,” the graceful woman said, by way of comfort.
 
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” the redhead confessed.  And then she wiped away her tears, and swallowed her pride, and strode back into the small clandestine meeting.
 
“We need Ragnar.  There’s no other way,” she told the group, who had all guessed as much, though nobody had wanted to say.
 
“That crazy motherfucker won’t do it,” Benny said then, by way of a smart-ass quip, because technically speaking he was the dimmest bulb in the room
 
“I’m not going to give him a choice,” the redheaded former Secretary of the UN said in a tone that implied she very much believed what she was saying.
 
“And the Fólkvangar?” Bruce asked then, because of all of them at the table, it was he who understood best what they were facing with Ragnar and his men, the Fólkvangar.
 
“They will stand the line, for Freyja’s privilege,” Lynnette told him with the smallest of nods, which he somewhat reluctantly returned.
 
“What’s the deal with Ragnar anyway?  I just thought he was a tough SOB.  Why all the drama?” Tiglath asked then, as he’d never really been one to keep up on other people’s gossip.
 
With a sigh, it was Omaha who explained.
 
“The second pandemic hit them the hardest.  Because them Nordic countries are all so goddamn homogeneous, when it struck it took almost all of their women.  And… well… Ragnar is the result.  Him, and his men, who all strictly adhere to a moral code that has been laid down, and is entirely overseen, by his mistress and goddess, Frejya,” he told the older man in the long white braids.
 
“I think I remember this story.  Wasn’t the UN trying to airlift them some vaccines in time – when the president’s envoy caused the entire shipment to be destroyed?” he asked, innocently enough.
 
Which caused Bruce to wince, and then step back away from the group.  Because honestly, he knew this story better than anyone, and so he decided just then it was his turn to step outside on the deck.
 
“Yes.  And Bruce was responsible for making that call, on behalf of the Secret Service.  However, he was only following orders, and if he hadn’t he would have been replaced instantly and someone else would’ve given those same orders.  And it’s only because Bruce made that call and stayed at his post that later on he was able to save many-many lives, that would otherwise have been lost.  So, that’s enough about that, let’s move on.”
 
“So, is this goddess Frejya of his a real person we have to deal with, or what?” Tiglath asked of anyone that would answer.
 
And it was Elu who smiled and then explained, “It’s believed that she’s only a figment of an insane man’s rather vivid imagination.  However, we’ve all seen things we can’t exactly explain.  Especially since the visitors arrived.”
 
And at that, everyone nodded in agreement.  Because it was true, the world had gotten extremely weird, extremely fast, after the alien visitors had arrived.
 
“So, what’s the plan then?  We can’t open communication channels directly with them without being overheard.”
 
“I need to go and speak to him, personally,” Lynnette told Omaha, as she was hoping he’d be the one to escort her.
 
Omaha looked over at his wife, for council and for support.  But they were always so linked, so of-a-mind, it had only been a gesture, because he already knew her answer. 
 
And so, the well dressed man with the larger than life gun on his hip smiled and nodded his head.
 
“Then Elu, I need you to gather your Wind Witches and everyone else you can, to help spread the word.  But remember, this is outside UN protocol – so, they will try to stop us any chance they get.
 
Elu, however, didn’t need to be reminded how bureaucracy always preferred to hunt down a perpetrator over building strong alliances.  And that had always been its major flaw, and the paramount reason nothing ever got better under its rule.
 
“I’ll do my best,” the elegant woman with the skin as dark as night said, just before she took her husband into her arms and hugged him for all he was worth.
 
“You be careful out there, you hear?” she asked him, just as she was letting him go.
 
But the man would not be let go of that easily, and so he pulled his woman into his arms and held her tight, as he said, “To the moon and back again, nothing will ever stop me from coming home to you.”
 
And with that, he gave her an incredible kiss, one that made everyone else blush, and then he swept up his backpack and said, “Let’s be off then.  Because there’s a major storm surge heading straight for Oslo.  And Ragnar will be right in the thick of it.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 6 (The Wind Witches) Part 2
 
 
 
     “Remember you are the voice for those who cannot talk; you are the protector of those who cannot protect themselves.”  Debasish Mridha
 
 
 
“There’s a few things we’re going to have get clear before I agree to help you,” the elegant man with the larger-than-life gun said, as the small group of conspirators walked down the west dock towards their skiff.
 
“Oh yeah?” Lynnette asked, in a way that told the man she’d expected there would be conditions.
 
“We’ll get aboard the Aponi first, then, we’ll talk about it,” he said, as he put his hand on the small of her back, just as she was boarding the skittish craft.
 
And normally, Lynnette would have flinched at the contact.  But from first laying eyes upon him, Lynnette just knew there was little that was normal about the man Omaha.
 
“The Aponi is here,” he told Benny, as he pressed his handheld to the one Benny had in his hand.
 
“Thanks,” Benny said, as he plugged the coordinates into the small craft’s auto-pilot.
 
“We have just under one-hundred-and-ninety-thousand harvesters under the Wolf banner, and even with the twenty-nine-thousand the Catholics have, and the seventy-three-thousand the Russians and Chinese have combined, I still don’t think we’ll have the numbers you need,” Omaha shouted over the wind, as the open-air craft bounced over the white capped water.
 
“Storms brewing,” Bruce said then, as he sniffed into the air.
 
“We need nineteen-thousand more,” Lynnette hollered back, as she tried to keep her bun from unraveling in the wind.
 
Omaha narrowed a look at the woman that suggested he was impressed with her, and scared of her, all at the same time.
 
“Before we board, there’s something you should know,” the man said, just as they reached the brand new harvester.
 
“Oh?” Lynnette asked, in such a way as to imply she really, really hated surprises.
 
“This isn’t my boat.  And I’m not the captain.”
 
Lynnette didn’t say a word at that, but rather she held her tongue, because she’d caught a smirk on the man’s face she liked entirely too much to be angry with him now.
 
And so, she followed the rest of them onboard the elegantly designed Aponi.
 
“Elu, we have a visitor, she’s here to help us fight off the drake.  Elu, this is former Secretary of the UN Lynnette Parker.  Lynnette, this is my wife, and captain of this ship, the beautiful queen Elu.”
 
“My pleasure,” Lynnette said, taking the hand of a woman that was almost as black as night.
 
“I’m glad they had the sense to send a woman,” Elu told her with a smile that radiated like the rays from a full-harvest moon.
 
“Well, they didn’t really send me, so much as I just came.  That’s why I’m no longer with the UN.  Because instead of looking at solutions they were too busy assigning blame.  And something needed to be done.”
 
“Would you like something to eat?  You all look hungry,” the forty-something-year-old woman asked, with so much grace and elegance Lynnette instantly liked her.  As did Benny and Bruce and Tiglath, who were all star struck by her radiance.
 
“How is it you came to be the captain of the Aponi?  I thought the Aponi was a White Wolf ship, and the White Wolves are all of the Whitefoot tribe, I thought,” Lynnette asked the Zulu woman.
 
The dark-eyed woman was silent for a minute, as she seemed lost in a sudden memory that Lynnette’s words had sparked.  And then she softly said, “First we eat.  Then we talk.  It’s never good to discuss such things on an empty stomach.”
 
“God bless you, woman,” Benny said then, with such a look of happiness it caused everyone else to smile and blow out a bit of pent-up energy they were storing.
 
“Rowtag is technically the captain of the Aponi, this ship’s predecessor.  And yes, he was of the Whitefoot tribe, just like the rest of the White Wolves,” Elu told the table, just as they were finishing off a delicious meal.
 
“Was?” Lynnette asked, as politely as she could.
 
“Yes,” the woman said, bowing her head a bit, in reverence and in respect.
 
“My husband died during the fight of the Shales.  When Red Wolf clan was decimated.  To a man.”
 
“But how did you not lose the harvester?” Lynnette asked.
 
“As you know, when the Catholics attacked at the Shales they used a high-frequency sound generator to disrupt the DNA signals of all of the ship captains.  That’s how they won.  And also how they lost, when it was determined they had used technology no man should possess.”
 
“Yes, I remember reading the reports at the time.  It was devastating.  But, I thought only Red Wolf Clan had been effected, to any large degree,” Lynnette told the woman, though to be fair, at the time it had happened Lynnette had been neck-deep in other pressing affairs.
 
“What you do not know is that both White Wolf Clan and Dead Wolf Clan were also effected.  Nearly to a man.  And a few other clans were also affected, to a lessor degree,” Elu told the woman who arrogantly prided herself on knowing more than everyone else in the room.
 
“Why am I just learning this now?  And how did you not lose all those ships?”
 
“Because what the enemy does not know can’t be used against us,” Elu informed the woman, as she rose from her place at the table, and then began cleaning off the dirty dishes.
 
“No, let me.  You go talk with them.  They need to know.  It’s right.  It’s time,” Omaha told his wife, as he took the dishes from her hands and then kissed her on her forehead.
 
Elu smiled at the man then, in such a way as to make Lynnette believe there was nothing she would not do for him, nor he for her.  And for a moment she let that thought sink into her bones.
 
And then she sighed and followed the elegantly dressed woman into the central room.
 
“The device the Catholics used only affect men, as it turns out.  But thankfully, most of our harvesters also had women aboard, woman that weren’t known by the council, because such things are frowned upon,” Elu told them all, as they each took a seat in the small central room.
 
“Frowned upon for good reason.  Harvesters are deadly, and especially after the great upheaval, and loosing all those women’s lives… to risk any more by allowing them onto the harvesters…” Lynnette’s voice trailed off as she realized that if these women had listened they would have lost their entire livelihoods.  In a heartbeat it simply would have been gone.
 
“I’m sorry, that must have been a terrible loss for you,” she finished instead.
 
Elu smiled at her, and then she bent over and scratched a white cat behind one of its ears.
 
“It’s the past.  And rarely do we know why a thing happens until much-much later. As the gods intend it to be.”
 
“Why is that?  Do you suppose?” Lynnette asked, honestly curious to hear this brave and bold woman’s answer.
 
“Because our minds are just too small to make sense of the bigger plan.  And because if we knew what they had in store for us we’d probably all just jump ship now.”
 
“Touché,” Lynnette said, with a wry grin.
 
“Most all of the ships within the South Pacific ring are captained by these women.  Women who have been doing it silently, behind the scenes, ever since that fateful battle.  Omaha is just the face of the operation.”
 
“The muscle in front of the brains,” Bruce chimed in then, his face a bright pink from all of the alcohol.
 
“Oh, Omaha is much-much more than muscle.  He’s the proud male lion that keeps all the rest at bay.  I mean, can you even imagine if all the men of our world realized these harvesters are populated with nothing but women?  What kind of danger they’d be in?”
 
Lynnette understood immediately why they functioned the way they did, and she thought it was brilliant.  Given the times they were in.
 
“Plus, it helps if the Catholics don’t know their sound device doesn’t work on women,” Lynnette also stated, just to make certain everyone else in the room understood the scope of the secrets they were now obligated to keep.
 
“Yes, it certainly helps that our enemies doesn’t know either our strengths, nor our weaknesses.  In fact, the only way us Wind Witches can ensure our safety, is if we can count on you all to keep our secret.”
 
Elu’s eyes were jet-black and as entrancing as her flawless skin and features.  Yet, there was  deadliness to her, a deadliness that spoke of not only a willingness to act, but a preparedness to act as well.
 
“We will all keep your secrets.  But first, I must know who’s really is in charge, then?”
 
“Why, we all are, of course.  All of us Wind Witches.  We formed a council of twelve, with Omaha as our thirteen.  As he puts his neck on the line for us more than anyone.  When we can’t decide among us, when there’s a decision we can’t make – Omaha decides.”
 
“So, he really is more than a show piece?” Lynnette remarked, just as the average build man with the larger than life presence walked into the room.
 
“Dishes are all done,” he said, as he took up Elu’s hand and kissed it.
 
“Oh, yes.  Omaha is the only reason we’re all still alive.”
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.
 

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 6 (The Wind Witches) Part 1
 
 
 
     “Children are very wise intuitively; they know who loves them most, and who only pretends.”  V.C. Andrews
 
 
 
“There are exactly five things I know for sure about women.  And one of those, is that they don’t like surprises,” the young man with the wildly intelligent eyes remarked with a knowing grin, as Benny came walking up to the seated foursome. 
 
“Who’s that with him?” Tiglath asked, in a way that implied he knew well enough.
 
“That’s Davis Vale, holy fucking cow,” someone at a nearby table remarked.
 
“Why, hello,” Lynnette said to the unexpected arrival, with a smile that was all kinds of menace, if you knew what you were looking for.
 
“Now, before you get mad, Lynnette, I swear… I only want what’s best for our daughter.”
 
Lynnette stared daggers at the man who despite standing only three-foot-nine intimidated most men.  Women… not so much, as the man was too much of a playboy to ever play rough with the girls.  And every one of them instinctively knew it.
 
“Your daughter has been my responsibility since you left.  What was that?  A million years ago?  Or maybe it’s been so long, you don’t remember,” Lynnette growled through her teeth, and then she glared at Benny, as if she would make him pay triple, for every ounce of her discomfort.
 
Which, strictly speaking, Benny thought was totally unfair because once again, he’d only been the messanger.
 
“If you do this, you’ll shift the power, entirely.  Forever,” her ex-husband told the wild redhead, who looked just about fit to be tied.
 
“And I don’t see how that’s going to help Hadley,” he said, as he walked around to her side of the table, and then took up one of her hands in both of his own.
 
“I will do anything you think is best.  Even if I wholeheartedly disagree.  But are you sure you can handle the fall-out?”
 
“What’s the alternative?” the firy readhead asked, as she snatched back her hand.
 
“Let the drake land?”
 
“There have been other options.  You know that as well as I,” the man, who had spent more time working for the Irish mafia than she’d been alive, said.
 
“No.  Those are all too risky.  All of them risk the surface.  We can’t abandon the earth so easily.”
 
Lynnette’s eyes were tired, but still, her face was an expressionless mask.  Though every fibre in her body felt like a half-struck match.
 
“Let me help,” the man said softly. 
 
And even though she had hated him for the better part of the last twenty-nine-years, the woman nodded, because honestly she was glad to have his support.
 
“You can help,” she told him truthfully.
 
“I need you to check in on the Catholics.  I’ve been moving too much to secure a signal.  Can you track Mahoney for me?  Can you send him a secure message?  And then relay his reply to me on the Mags?”
 
“Anything for you, Lynn, darling.  Anything for you, as you’ve always known.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 5 (Life’s Lemons) Part 2
 
 
 
    “To me, a witch is a woman that is capable of letting her intuition take hold of her actions, that communes with her environment, that isn't afraid of facing challenges.”  Paulo Coelho
 
 
 
“Jesus Christ, that’s a big fall.”
 
“Then my suggestion is to not fall,” Bruce told Benny, as together they hung from the outside of the lightning harvester, as they patched the gaping hole in her side.
 
“You two just be careful with my Mags.  She may look old, but there is magic in these bones.  In fact, she’s kept me out of more scrapes than I care to remember,” Tiglath told them over the radio.
 
“Yeah, yeah,” Benny quipped, petulantly.  But every one of the harvesters felt the same about their own boat, and so he followed it up with a sympathetic smile.
 
“Hand me that welder.”
 
“Once we land this tub you think we’ll be able to get her back in the air?” Bruce asked, as he handed Benny the blue-laser welder.
 
“Hey!  I heard that!” Tiglath hollered angrily into their headsets.
 
And at that, Bruce cringed and then turned off his radio, and then he signaled for Benny to do the same.
 
“Once we hit the ground,” Bruce said, as he pressed his face mask tightly against Benny’s, “you split off and go and fetch someone for me.  Ya?”
 
Benny, who was more afraid of Tiglath and the redhead than he was of Bruce raised one eyebrow, and then the other.
 
“Why?  Who?” he asked, in a loud rush, as he looked all around for where Tiglath kept his security cameras.
 
“Never you mind on both of them scores.  I’ll give you a note and you take it to the Vales.”
 
“Jesus Christ.  Are you serious?  The Vales?”
 
Bruce took the blue-laser welder and held its beam uncomfortably close to Benny’s mask.
 
And then he repeated, “Once we hit the ground, so-to-speak, you split off and go and fetch someone for me, or you won’t be returning from this mission.  Got it?”
 
Benny, the grown man who perpetually looked like a gangly-teen nodded, but otherwise didn’t say a word.
 
“Good,” Bruce said lightly, as he turned off the welder and then brushed off the front of Benny’s jumpsuit.
 
“Now, let’s get inside and test the internal air pressure before he decides to put us in the water.”
 
Benny nodded casually at that, but his eyes still refused to shrink back to their normal size.
 
I mean, he’d always heard about Bruce and his ulterior motives, but it didn’t comfort him one bit to have to come face-to-face with it himself.  Especially not when they were in enemy waters, quite literally.
 
Half hour later their small water craft was working its way to the only sea town within a thousand square kilometers.
 
It was a strange man-made island that was really just a chain of barges that never moved.  And every year it grew and grew, as old, decommissioned clunkers were added to its ranks.
 
Basically, what it was though, was the modern-day hangout for all things ‘pirate’.  Which included all of the South Pacific Harvesters.  All of them under the direct and absolute leadership of Omaha.
 
“Hey guys,” Benny said, just as soon as his booted foot hit the metal make-shift dock, “I gotta go talk to my old lady’s mum.  She lives here, and if she finds out I didn’t go and see her she’ll strip the hide right off my back.”
 
Bruce smiled widely at that, because Bruce knew Benny’s old lady’s mum would in fact put three giant holes in him if given half the chance.
 
But the rest of the party didn’t know that, and that suited Bruce just fine.
 
“Meet us back here in an hour,” Lynnette told him, obviously overly optimistic on how long it would take them to talk the young rebel leader into joining their cause, let alone finding him in the first place.
 
Because on the man-made floating island of Tortulane there were over a hundred bars and twice as many brothels, and Omaha had financial dealings in at least half of them.
 
“An hour…” Benny started to whine, but Bruce just narrowed a look on him that reminded the younger harvester that he oughta be running, and not speaking.
 
“An hour, got it,” Benny quipped over a shoulder, before Lynnette could reply, and then he was off and running towards the South Dock.
 
“How wealthy is Benny’s old lady’s mum?” Lynnette asked Bruce, with one of her red eyebrows cocked as high as it could go.
 
But Bruce just swallowed, then smiled, then said, “I think Benny is really trying for some high-end healing, if you know what I mean?”
 
Lynnette put her eyebrow back in its place, but her skepticism remained in place.
 
Because she knew Benny well enough to know he wasn’t getting hard with his life literally on the line.  That’s basically why he’d been useless to her as a spy in the first place; she’d found out – the hard way. (No pun intended.)
 
“So, you think you can find Omaha in all of this, in under an hour?” Bruce asked of his old friend, whom he knew had done some pretty strange and miraculous things during her time serving the UN.
 
“We don’t need to find Omaha,” Lynnette told the vet she’d hoped was a bit brighter than that.
 
“Omaha’s gonna find us,” she said.  Then she strode over to an outside bar, ordered a Ragnar, and then she took a seat on one of the folding chairs on the flag-covered patio.
 
Then, she pulled a flare gun from the inside of her jacket and fired it into the air.
 
Bruce, sat opposite from her, with a short glass of the familiar green liquor in his hand.
 
“Where’s Tiglath?” Lynnette asked, after taking a moment to look around for the old war hero.
 
“He ran down to the sea-grass juice place,” Bruce told her, obviously not feeling entirely comfortable in the man’s beverage choice, as if it might say something about his virility.  Which made Lynnette laugh so fucking hard.  And loud.
 
A moment later, before her laughing fit had even ended, an extremely attractive ochre-skinned man walked up to the pair of them.
 
“I heard you’re looking for me,” he told them both, with a smile that was every bit as deadly as the large .45 on his hip.
 
Lynnette smiled a reflexive smile that was born of instant attraction, which instantly put the man at ease.
 
“We need your help, of course,” she told the man she knew lived on ego.  I mean, you didn’t get to be the most powerful man in the entire South Pacific without a giant ego – right?
 
“Of course you do.  But what kind of help?” the extremely charismatic man asked, with another knowing smile that literally made the woman weak.
 
“We need your harvesters.  All of them,” Bruce informed the man, as he eyed his once capable friend, who now seemed to be falling to pieces next to him.
 
“Is this about the drake?” the average-sized man with the larger-than-life presence asked.
 
“You know about the drake?” Lynnette asked sharply, suddenly regaining her composure.
 
“Of course I know about the drake.  I figure we have less than four days.  You gonna link the ships together to repulse him?  Is that the idea?”
 
Lynnette had known she’d liked this man even before he’d opened his mouth, but seeing his sharp mind at work was really making her day.
 
“Yeah, that’s the general idea,” she told him truthfully.
 
“Then you have a plan for Russia and China?  Without them we don’t stand a chance,” the man who was sipping a water asked and informed them.
 
Bruce raised his own eyebrow at that, as he had simply forgotten to ask about them.  He’d been so intent on roping in the largest group – the Wolves, the two small countries had totally slipped his mind.
 
“They’re the easy ones, actually,” Lynnette said, as she sipped on her all-veggie drink.
 
“Their harvesters are all controlled by a single governing body, so as long as the order comes from a superior they know and trust they’ll comply, regardless of what we tell them to do,” she said, smiling hugely at how well that part of the plan was coming together.
 
“So, you have authorities in Russia AND China who are willing to give those orders?” Omaha asked, as he narrowed his dark sultry eyes on the woman that was nearly four-times his age.
 
“I do now.  In actuality they’re Royal Dedenti, who’ve been able to assume the identities of some very high ranking officials.  Beyond that, I really can’t say anything,” she said, still maintaining a smile that left none at the table questioning her veracity.
 
“What’s got you all so happy?” Tiglath asked then, as he walked up with a sea-grass juice in his hand.
 
“Oh, nothing.  Nothing at all,” Lynnette said, and then she winked at Omaha.
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 6 (Life’s Lemons) Part 1
 
 
 
      “To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”  Anne Rice
 
 
 
“They must have seen the two ships slaved to this one and thought they were in for repairs.  They mean to strip us in the air, siphon off the plasma coils, and then leave us to drop,” Bruce hollered over the noise, despite Lynnette being just inches away from him.
 
“Well, they’re going to find a mighty surprise on my boat, that’s for damn sure,” Benny yelled then, as he came up behind them.
 
“Where’d Tiglath go?” he asked, but before anyone had time to answer him, the medium-build man with the tired eyes came back into the center room carrying four large plasma guns.
 
“Don’t bother asking names, these fellas have been haunting me for the past thirteen years.  Been trying to drive Red Wolf Clan entirely into extinction, so they can take over our territories.”
 
Lynnette raised an eyebrow at that.
 
So Bruce quickly explained in her ear, as they both disengaged the safeties on their plasma cannons, “After the war with the Catholics, Red Wolf Clan was awarded the largest territory, but Tiglith’s was the only ship left, so he leases most of it out.”
 
Lynnette looked again around the small out-of-date ship that looked like it was being kept aloft with not much more than hopes and prayers, and then she raised a meaningful eyebrow at the bald yet beautiful man.
 
Which made him chuckle in that knowing kind of way that always drives women wild.
 
And then he said, just as the side of the airship exploded outwards, “He sends it all to the indigenous tribes still stuck on the ground.”
 
And a moment later three large bird-men entered through a hole in the side of the ship.
 
“We’re here for the female,” a large black and blue feathered alien said, as he walked confidently up to the large bullish man that was shielding the small redhead under his arm.
 
“Excuse me?  I don’t believe you were invited,” Tiglath said then, as he moved in an arc around the bird-men, so quick-like none of them could track him.
 
And then, in a single motion – he threw them off of his ship, flinging them like ants off of a picnic blanket.
 
“But how?” Lynnette asked, as she gaped at the place the alien bird-men had just been.
 
“A modified peace bomb,” Tiglath replied, as he looked again at the redhead, and then at the hole in his ship.
 
“We’ve got one chance, and that’s if we jump now, without the slaved ships, and with the giant hole in this one.”
 
“Why? I thought…” Bruce began, but Tiglath put up a hand, and then quickly answered the first question.
 
“Because Cassons can fly, their shit dissolves metal, and one wrong strike and this entire ship will explode.  Now, who wants to jetpack back to their own ship?  Anyone?  Those slaved ships slow us down, it’s either we jump now – or we’re dead where we stand.”
 
“Jump,” Lynnette said, entirely too used to giving orders that risked not only hers but everyone else’s life as well.
 
“Hold on, this is gonna get ugly,” Tiglath hollered, just as Benny shouted, and then pointed out the opening, at the fast approaching hoard.
 
“There’s at least fifty of them!” he hollered over the whirlwind.
 
But before the avian attackers could land, the star-drive engaged and suddenly they were slipping in-between space.  A place no avian alien could follow – without the right technology, that is.
 
And then, just a second later, the ship bounced to a stop thirty-thousand-feet over the South Pacific.
 
“At least it’s a clear day,” Lynnette remarked brightly, as she peered out of the giant opening in the side of the ship.
 
“That’s not a good thing,” Tiglath replied with a dark look.
 
“Why’s that?” Lynnette asked, because the truth was, she was still a bit naïve – even after seventy-some-odd-years.
 
“Because he’ll most likely be drunk as fuck,” Benny quipped, as he once again picked up a hand cannon.  “So, this should be real fun.”
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 5 (Past Lives) Part 2
 
 
 
     “Never was anything great achieved without danger.”  Niccolo Machiavelli
 
 
 
“What you have to understand is that just because Wolf Clan is made up of only indigenous people, we are not all the same.  In fact, it was the notion of putting us all into one generic clan they believed would keep us separate, and fighting against each other over the best territories.”
 
“Yes, I know a lot about how the lightning harvesters were originally chosen,” the woman who had spent more than fifteen years at the UN said, with a great deal of shame tucked into the corners of her voice.
 
But the old man (who was more stout than the fifty-two-year-old Benny, in many ways), smiled all the same, as if he knew.  As if he understood all too well the true impotence of any public position.
 
“Wolf Clan is made up of over two-thousand different tribes.  Two thousand.  And if you want them all to work together, in synchronicity even, to accomplish this… that means you’re going to have to convince them all.  So, how long do we have?”
 
“Four days,” the woman replied without expression.  Just open eyes.
 
Tiglath smiled wide at that, and then laughed, and then said, “I knew all women were crazy, I just never realized just how crazy you all are, until just this very moment.”
 
“Says the man that not only led, but also came up with the plan for, the suicide run up Mount Mitchell,” Lynnette remarked with a small, sad smile; one of respect, but also of bitter regret.
 
“Yes,” Tiglath said, “says that man.”
 
And then he got up and went to the kitchen to wash out his glass.
 
And then he said, “Then, we’re gonna need the one they call Omaha.  He’s the only bastard I know of that could possibly run aground the worst of us, in that short amount of time, that is.  If anyone can.”
 
Bruce raised an eyebrow at that, “I’ve never heard of him, is he North American?”
 
“No,” Tiglath said, as he sat down at this control panel in order to punch in the new coordinates for his harvester.
 
“Omaha is South Pacific.”
 
Bruce whistled between his teeth at that, and Benny coughed a few times in his corner, so instantly Lynnette’s neck hair stood on end, just as another loud lightning strike hit the center of the ship.
 
“What’s the big deal?” she asked Bruce, because she’d come to trust his advice, if not him… entirely.
 
“South Pacific is where they send the craziest mother fuckers on the planet.”
 
“Why Omaha?” Lynnette hollered over the loudness of the storm in the ancient ship.
 
“Because everyone’s scared shitless of him.  Now, you better hold on.  These old ships drop further than those new high-falutin' ones you all are used to.”
 
And like that, there was a sudden stillness to the air, and then, as the ship began to rapidly fall towards the earth, as Lynnette’s stomach dropped into her toes, a loud CRACK sounded from all around them.
 
“Bloody hell!” Bruce yelled, as he grabbed Lynnette and threw her beneath him.
 
“What’s going on?” she screamed, just as the plasma coil burst into life.
 
“We’re being boarded by pirates.”
 
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.

​Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 5 (Past Lives) Part 1
 
 
 
 
       “Tell your people they are powerful.  Tell your people they have a purpose.  Tell your people they can do anything they put their minds to.  Tell them, that through their bravery they can achieve the impossible.  And then surely, they can do nothing else.”  Tiglath – Chief of Red Wolf Clan 
 

 
“I made my bed a long time ago, made peace with it even.  So, why now do you expect me to crawl back out of it, because you say so?”
 
The man was a few years older than the redhead, but he somehow seemed immortal to the well-trained woman’s eyes.
 
“Looks like you’re just taking a long nap to me,” she remarked with a grin she knew most men favored.
 
“Seems awfully boring, if you ask me,” she said, as she poured them all a glass of the bright green liquor they’d brought.
 
But Tiglath just waved his off.
 
“Pretty brave coming here in the middle of a mega-storm.  Or stupid,” he remarked, as he shuffled about his small lighting harvester.  It was one of the earliest models, and therefore not only the smallest, but also the most dangerous, especially during a mega-storm.
 
“Necessity is the mother of all bitches, I must say,” Lynnette told him through another bright grin.
 
Which made Tiglath smile hard, and then he poured himself a tall glass of sea-grass juice.
 
“Now I know why you don’t seem to have aged,” the woman who looked a good thirty-years younger than her real age told the man, whose muscles had grown a bit flabby over the years.
 
“We are what we’re made of,” the man remarked, as he brushed a sun-kissed hand over a painting of a woman, almost as if it were an unconscious comforting ritual.
 
“So, let me get this straight.  You need at least ninety-percent of the airborne harvesters to form a grid to stop a drake from nesting on our planet.  That about sum it up?” the man who’d been a hero in too many wars asked.
 
“If we don’t stop the drake, I don’t think anyone else can.  I left the UN, because their corruption has evolved to the point of complete ineptness.  And there’s no way they’ll even be able to follow through with their plan, not that it would even work.”
 
“Which is?” the red-skinned man asked, of the small, albinoesque woman.
 
“The UN have borrowed some tech from China they’re hoping will repulse the drake, before he gets here.  Send him along on another path.”
 
“By 'borrowed', you mean stole, don't you?” Bruce chimed in from a spot in the corner where he was crouched on a heel like and old-time sheepherder.
 
Lynnette smiled then, a ‘cat ate the canary’ kinda smile, that implied he’d spoken the truth, but otherwise she remained silent on that score. 
 
And instead, she simply said, “It’ll fail.  We’ve seen all possible outcomes, and every one of them fails.”
 
“You’ve seen?” Tiglath asked, as he came to sit next to her on his small sofa.
 
“She has a Royal Dedenti on her payroll,” Bruce explained, with a bit of a knowing smile, that implied he’d been annoyed his old friend hadn’t mentioned this part of the plan to him personally.
 
“And how did you come by this information?” Lynnette asked him, and in a way admitted, without admitting, it was true.
 
“I have my sources,” Bruce told her, with a wry grin that made her think it had cost him something dear, the information… which made Lynnette Parker worry a bit more about what the man’s real motives were for helping her.
 
But she couldn’t be bothered with it for long, as the drake really was on his way – in order to clear the planet of any threat, before he brought in his mate.
 
And together they would nest on the core of the planet and when it was time, the female would lay an egg on the surface of the sun.  Just one egg, but one egg was all it takes to destroy a solar system.
 
“So, your future-seeing Dedenti said all possible outcomes lead to the drake taking over.  What does she have to say about the chances of your plan succeeding?”
 
Lynnette smiled brightly at that, because although she'd never once expected the man to be anything less than brilliant – it was still nice to see his sharp mind was still intact, even after all these years, and all of his losses.
 
Because the sad fact was, that even though Tiglath had made every right decision, had taken every chance he could, and come out on top – he’d still lost everything he loved in the process.  Everything he held dear.
 
“She says we have a chance, and that’s enough for me,” the seventy-two-year-old woman told the man that was a fifteen years her senior.
 
“A chance,” Tiglath said, as he rubbed at his bare chin.
 
It was a strong chin, a respectable chin, a chin of a man who had never once taken his responsibility to his people lightly.
 
Now… the only question that remained, at least to Lynnette’s sharp mind, was who did Tiglath consider to be his people?  Did he even have any?  Or had they all died with his clan?
 
Lynnette looked into his deep, rich, brown eyes and in a single heartbeat she had her answer.
 
And then he confirmed it when he said, “I’ll do it.  But only if we do it my way.”
 
“What’s your way?” Benny chimed in from a far corner, where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor.
 
“If we do this... from now on, we give the power to the people – for free.”
 
 
 
 
    “In a mad world, only the mad are sane.”  Akira Kurosawa
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2021
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.