Chapter 14

I awoke to daylight flooding into the room and bolted upright in the bed frantically searching the room with memories of last night heavy on my mind. The light revealed that no one was there. The room was empty except for me.

“What happened last night?” I wondered, as I had no memories of anything happening after Eavan giggled and said, “It’s all right.” My mind was a complete blank for the rest of the night.

My alarm went off then, and I needed to get up for PT, since I was the one who leads it. Last night and whatever had happened, or didn’t happen, would have to wait until later. After quickly dressing, I headed downstairs.

I had only reached the ground floor when I was waylaid by Joel. He had obviously been waiting for me, and pulled me aside as soon as he saw me. I immediately knew something was wrong as soon as he began to speak.

“Cleve, I need to talk to you,” he said, as he dragged me into a corner.

“What’s wrong, Joel?” I asked my usually unflappable second in command.

“I ... one of the Irish girls appeared in my bed last night. It was the younger one. She shocked the hell out of me! I had been reading and dropped the book when she appeared. She just giggled and moved up against me. “It’s all right,” she said, and that’s the last thing I remember. When I woke up this morning, no one was there, but the book was right where I had dropped it. What the hell happened and what the hell is going on?” a very upset Joel Luther demanded.

“Calm down, buddy,” I told him. “The same thing happened to me last night, and yes, I have no memory of what occurred after she giggled and said, ‘It’s all right’,”I told him to a look of relief on his face.

“What do we do, Cleve?” he asked next.

“We have PT and then clean up. After that, we find out what is going on. I’ll need to talk to the Colonel, but as Trish and not in her official role as the Commander,” I told him before we went out to start PT. The Marines had already started their PT by the time we were in formation. PT went very well, as usual, since all of our people are in good shape and all are enhanced. Following PT, Joel and I went to find Trish. It wasn’t difficult, as she had also been at PT and was coming toward us.

“We need to talk,” she said before I could even open my mouth. “Find Miranda, we’ll need her also,” she said next, but Miranda was already approaching us on the now empty PT field.

“Let’s go up to the office,” Trish said as Lucy joined us, and all four of us moved out. Nothing more was said until we reached the Colonel’s office.

“What in God’s own name happened last night? I had just gotten in bed when Eachna appeared in my bed next to me. She was very skimpily dressed. Her sudden appearance shocked me for several seconds,” Trish told us.

“Is something wrong, Eachna?” I asked. She just giggled before saying, ‘Everything is all right’, and that is the last thing that I remember until waking up this morning,” Trish told us with a vexed expression.

“You too?” both Joel and I said in amazement. Lucy was just smiling, but Trish wasn’t.

“Just what do you mean by ‘You too’?” she demanded in a harsh voice.

“Eavan visited both Joel and me last night, and neither of us have a clue what happened after she said, ‘It’s all right’,” I told her.

“Nothing happened to any of you last night. Well, nothing that any of you need to worry about. Nothing occurred. There was no sex or anything else. You were all put to sleep while the sisters worked on your Talents, so you will be able to do at least some Magic,” Lucy told us.

“Eachna visited me last night also and explained what they are doing. It will require several more nights for them to complete their work. Only so much can be done at one time, as it requires time for your Talents to grow and expand between sessions. Mine should be finished in two more nights, but yours will take a bit longer,” she finished as the three of us just stared at her in shock.

“But why? Why are they doing this?” Trish asked in her official voice as the Colonel.

“It’s so we can go to see their Leaders and the Law Givers,” Lucy told us.

“Just us?” I asked, looking at the others there.

“Yes, just us. They have determined that we are the leaders here and should talk to their Elders and Leaders,” Lucy told us.

“But why didn’t they tell us what they wanted to do, instead of scaring us half to death?” Joel asked in a very aggravated voice.

“They needed to check or test each of us to be sure that we would be receptive, that our Talents would be receptive to being enlarged. There are some who would not be able to accept or accommodate their work. Bland is one of those. Her enhancement has already reached its maximum potential. Some of the others could also benefit from their work, but we are the ones who will be able to benefit the most from what they are able to do. There are others from their family or clan who could also help if we reach an agreement with their Leaders,” Lucy finished.

“I think we need to have another chat with those young ladies,” the Colonel told us in her official voice, before she sniffed herself. “After we clean up and have breakfast,” she amended.

Following cleaning up and breakfast, the Colonel approached Eachna and Eavan, who were up now. They hadn’t been at PT, and we could understand why, now that Lucy had explained things.

“We need to have another chat. Come up to my office, but after you finish eating,” she told the two girls.

“Yes sir,” Eachna responded. Obviously, she had learned the correct way to address the Colonel from listening to us. The four of us went up to the office, and the Irish sisters appeared there about ten minutes later.

“Please have a seat, each of you,” the Colonel requested. We had rearranged her office while waiting for the sisters. There were now six chairs in a circle in there, and no one was sitting behind the desk. The Colonel waited until the sisters were seated to begin, but I noticed that they both were seated on the edge of their chairs and not sitting back and relaxing as the rest of us were. A flight or fight reaction, I wondered?

“Sergeant Miranda, Lucy, has explained what you are trying to do to help us meet with your Leaders, but we have some questions and a statement first,” she began, but as Trish and not the Colonel.

“I’ll start with the statement. It’s really an explanation,” Trish continued. “It is illegal for Special Operations personnel to have sex with minors, or to have them in their beds, or even in their rooms. The punishment for this is very severe. Last night, you startled three of us very badly, as we knew what could be done to us for having a minor in our room, and especially in our bed. It would have been much better if you had warned us ahead of time what you intended to do.

“That is behind us now. What we need to know is how long it will take to finish the program you have started. We have a lot of people here now, plus support above the planet. We need to begin to determine how to solve the problem here shortly. To do that, we will need to speak to your Leaders. Then we must determine how to solve the problem in a way that is fair to both sides. It will not be an easy solution, I’m afraid,” Trish told them in a quiet voice.

“Yes sir, we understand that now, but we will still need to appear in your rooms and put you to sleep to do the work necessary to expand your Talents to a level where you will be able to converse with our Leaders as equals,” Eachna told us.

“There may be a way to do that where you do not need to be in our rooms, but we will explore that later. You seem to place great emphasis on our being able to converse with your Leaders as equals,” Trish said, having picked up on the girls’ emphasis.

“Yes, the other colonists do not use Magic, and they have never been considered equals, or to have a say in how things are to be run. The same was true of the people from the Unity Government. None of them had the Talent, or could do Magic, or could speak with their minds,” Eachna told us.

Immediately, I could imagine exactly what had happened when the Unity Government representatives were here, and weren’t greeted with open arms, or like the kings they thought they were, by the original colonists. They had been more impressed by those representing the second wave of colonists, who were more anxious to be the ones in charge here and would have treated them like the VIPs and kings they thought of themselves as.

That is why things didn’t turn out well for the original colonists. How to reverse this would be our job if the descendants of the original colonists could be convinced to be more accepting of Unity rule and were, in fact, the better choice to be in charge of the government here. WE would need to see just how true any of this was. I could see from her reaction, that the Colonel had reached the same conclusions that I had.

“Can you give us an estimate of how long it will take to accomplish this?” Trish asked.

“Possibly three more nights, maybe four. We will need to see how fast your Talents react to the stimulus,” Eavan told us.

“All right, that’s not too long. We will be able to have everything reorganized by then, so that the four of us can be absent for a time to meet with your Leaders,” Trish told them.

“Is there anything else that we need to do to get ready?” Miranda asked. Eachna sighed before answering.

“Yes, do you have any better uniforms or clothes? Yours are so dull and uninteresting. This may be good for fighting but not for meeting with important people, who put great emphasis on dressing well and appearing important by the clothing and jewelry they wear,” Eachna informed us.

“Yes, some of us have more impressive uniforms, and we will be taking our Partners with us when we go to see your Leaders. I doubt any of them have anything to match our Partners,” Trish told them. Both sisters smiled on hearing this. Following that, the meeting broke up. There were other things that required our attention, and Captain Roanoke was anxious to speak to both me and the Colonel.

“We need to run patrols to determine what is going on, and what the local Army is up to,” he told the Colonel on entering her office and saluting.

“How many patrols and where?” she asked after returning his salute and a short silence.

“At least two patrols. One going east from here and the other going west. They would make a half circle to cover the north and south areas also,” he told her.

“What size patrol?” she asked.

“Two squads on each patrol,” he answered.

“All right. When did you want to start?” she asked.

“In an hour or so, if that would be acceptable,” he replied.

“Yes, an hour will give us time to get the Eagles and Falcons in the air for a new survey of the area. You can also have a Team accompany each of your patrols, if you desire,” she told him with a smile.

“Yes sir, I’m sure my people would appreciate that,” he replied with an even bigger smile.

“Cleve, get our feathered Partners ready for an aerial survey within a two mile radius. That should give us an idea of how large an area the patrols will be able to cover,” Trish told me.

“Yes sir, Luther has been getting them ready for our regular daily aerial survey, and they will be launched shortly,” I told her before alerting the other Teams to go out on patrol with the Marines.

“Do your best to not engage the local Army forces, and we will take our Magic users with us. The Eagles can join the patrols after they have had a short rest and have eaten,” the Colonel added.

“Yes sir,” both Captain Roanoke and I answered before saluting and moving out to get our people ready.

We had the results of the survey in about 45 minutes. It showed that the Parthas Army had stopped all traffic and set up a roadblock to the east just a bit over a mile from our headquarters. The roadblock in the westerly direction was about a mile and a half from us. Captain Roanoke was not happy about any of that.