​Les Mousquetaires – Chapter 8 (Droit Du Seigneur) Part 2

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.

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