~ * ~ * ~
The month-long honeymoon seemed to fly by at light speed, and before long, the couple found themselves out of time. On the shuttle back to the Lochte Starport, Rienne looked at Rafian.
“Guess what?” she asked, and he suddenly looked concerned.
“Oh no. Are you with child?”
Her expression changed to one of annoyance and she punched him in the arm.
“Maker’s sake, woman, you hit pretty hard!” he exclaimed, holding the arm and observing the black-and-blue area where her wedding ring had left its bruise.
“No, wrong, try again.” She was giggling now, and Rafian was getting annoyed. Snatching a chunk of her flesh underneath her arm, he pinched her and she squealed and jerked her arm away.
“Come on Rienne, out with it—” He couldn’t finish his sentence because of a pain in his groin. Looking down, he realized that she literally had him by the balls! He raised his hands up in surrender, which prompted a bigger smile on her face.
“See? Aren’t you glad I am on your side?” she asked.
“I know you’re a fierce hatch kitten who doesn’t give up. That I do know,” he said, shaking his head.
Then, upon releasing him, Rienne melted into his arms and whispered, “Well, that’s OK, because I am now your kitten forever. I was just going to tell you that I will be leaving my post to take my place by your side. Do you think they would accept me in Aygis?”
Rafian squeezed her tight and kissed the top of her head. “Accept you? My dear, you will be their first lady!”
Rafian and Rienne hastily gathered her belongings and depressed them into a moving capsule—a phenomenal invention that defied all logic. The capsule could contract to the size of a fist, shrinking anything within it to allow for easy storage.
In secrecy, the couple flew into Cally and then shipped off to Vyre, Tyhera, where they spent the night. The plan was to sneak her out of her Felitian command station without anyone knowing. The Fels would assume she was dead or kidnapped, and in time, she would be in his arms, happily married and protected by his resistance fighters.
“Rafian, I was thinking of changing my name,” she said when they were finally settled in.
Holding her hands as they sat on the edge of the bed, he began talking to her quietly. “I didn’t intend on this being so hard or painful for you, Rienne, but I promise you this: from the day we eloped, you were and will always be my queen. You are what I hold dearest to my heart, and I will never do anything to hurt you in any way. My fight for freedom can finally mean something—it will mean a life of peace where we can be a family. Please don’t ever forget that I love you, and that I always will.”
Rienne edged in even closer and whispered in his ear. “I understood all of that the day we exchanged vows.” The sound of a trooper patrol was outside their hotel, so the lovers kept quiet and waited until they passed. “What am I to you, Rafian?”
It was an unexpected question, but rather than answer with deep thought, he just spoke candidly. “You are my Rienne.”
Suddenly Rienne hopped up excitedly, clapping and dancing around, looking as much the fencer as she had on that day they first met. “Yes I am and I love it!” she exclaimed.
Rafian was confused. “What are you going on about, Rhee?”
“Don’t you see? That will be my name, you said my Rienne! Well, that is what I am, I am your Rienne! So you see, Myrienne will be my name!”
Barely understanding, Rafian thought it through. His odd accent with the Tyheran dialect had made him pronounce it like a name.
“So your name will be Marian, then?” he asked.
“Yes!” she screamed. “Marian VCA!”
She was more excited than he had ever seen, and it made him energized to witness it. As he watched his nubile and extremely happy wife play around with her name he felt complete—and it was not a feeling he was used to.
Memory 20 | Person
It was the fifth month of the push on Veece when Rafian woke up confused and aware for the first time in years as to who he truly was. He had had a dream the night before in which he was visited by a woman. She had long dark hair and clothing that resembled nothing he had seen before on Tyhera. He knew that her name was Tayden, but he couldn’t understand why he knew her.
She was repeating something to him, and it took a while to figure out what it was she was saying. “You must come back to us. You are taking too long to return.”
She was dressed in a skintight white outfit, and her hair flowed wildly over her shoulders—she certainly was not a woman of Tyhera, because hair let loose was seen as the fashion of immoral women. It did not seem strange to him, however, and the more he walked towards her, the more she seemed familiar.
When he woke up, the memories flooded into his brain like a broken dam. The reality of his situation began to make sense to him, and his world and everything he thought he was came crumbling down in an instant. “Where am I?”
Marian was awake now and caressing him worriedly while telling him that he was in Veece with his wife. Of course he remembered. The resistance had taken the capital city, and after a grand celebration, he had taken Marian back to her house, where they slept after emptying her cupboards of wine.
“Are you okay, husband?” she asked finally, and he stared at her, wondering how he would reveal his identity and the happenings that had allowed him to make it to her galaxy.
He sat up, looked at her, and then began talking, despite the numerous attempts she made to stop him. “You have to hear this in its entirety, Rhee. If you don’t, it won’t make any sense to you. I am Rafian VCA, a jumper, Starfighter, and marine for the Fourth Lance squadron of the Helysian, a military starship. My galaxy is Anstractor, and I am twenty-five years old, I think. The memory loss I had all this time was chemically induced by my masters so that I could come here empty. I am apparently out of time here, and I am being summoned to return.”
Marian was staring at him, wide-eyed and wondering if there was a punch line coming at the end of his story. She first asked him if he was sure about the memory being real, and then she asked him how he felt about what the jumpers had done to him. He let his anger show and explained to her that he meant to exact revenge upon them.
He told her about Camille, the sexual conditioning, and the way they had forced him into the chair and wiped his memories. Shame came over him upon realizing that he was now married to Marian, and Camille would again be left out in the cold. If he jumped back, he would break her heart and leave a woman he loved to pick up the pieces of a life he had helped to shatter. Death would have been an easier prospect.
“Marian, I need you to come back with me to Anstractor,” he said.
Marian looked away quickly, being that she could never look into his eyes whenever he was upset. She feared the unknown and was not sure whether her husband was being logical or having issues with his sanity. Jumping galaxies? Was that sort of thing even possible? She knew he had suffered traumatic memory loss, but waking up to this was just too much. She wanted to fall back asleep and return to the world where they were victorious, and she was in her own bed with the man that she loved.
Rafian’s mind was moving a mile a minute, and he wanted Marian to say yes so that he could get back as soon as possible. How will I explain all of this when we are reunited? he thought. He didn’t want to hurt either of them, and he began rationalizing how he would keep Marian in his life while making things right with Camille YAN.
“If I’m to believe what you’re saying and join you in Anstractor, what is to happen to our friends and the fight for Tyhera, Rafian?” Marian asked.
He kissed her in hopes of giving her some reassurance. “I believe that when we jump out, there will be a major shift in the movement and the Fels will finally retreat. The war has been going on for decades now, Rhee; it will continue to go on even in our absence.”
Marian nodded to show him that she understood, and to also let him know that she trusted him. Th
ey got up, showered, and grabbed the things that meant the most to her. “Should we say good-bye to our friends?” Marian asked. Her eyes looked as if everything she loved had been wiped out in a flood.
“They would never understand,” Rafian said and tightened his lips at the overwhelming sadness he felt.
Marian looked around the room as if saying a mental good-bye, and Rafian reached back to his third molar, squeezed it hard, and pulled out the tiny crystal shard that was embedded within it. A jumper needed the crystal to return, and it would be his ticket back to the reality he had always known.
He instructed Marian to hold him tight, and with that, he held the tiny piece aloft and thought of the light from within the crystal room. It took less than a minute for the couple to feel the power of the warp crystal. The room was suddenly consumed with a milky-white light, and before they knew it, they were in front of the stone chair and floating crystal at the jumper temple.