Chapter 1 Healing

Friends meet and discover the horrible truth of what really happened on the outer worlds.

Chapter 1

Healing

It was the fifth job he had tried since he’d come to Vandar after his divorce one space year earlier. Jareth stared in frustration at the chipped and faded full-length mirror. The red dye in his shower head had left reddish streaks in his black brown hair, making him look like he was one of his race’s adolescents. It was the last straw in a long line of vicious pranks that he was the target of in the men’s dorm. Unfortunately, the scandal with his wife had preceded him on the intergalactic news, and he had gotten the brunt of it over the last year. Jareth grabbed his resignation papers and his space bag. He went up and dropped the papers silently on the supervisor’s old metal desk. Pete said nothing but winced and looked away from the dark-skinned youth’s golden, alien eyes. He knew Jareth didn’t deserve the bad press or the hostile treatment from the workers, but he was helpless to soften the attitude of the workers toward the young prince. He watched sadly as the prince turned on his heels and headed toward his motor bike outdoors.

Jareth’s thoughts were filled with frustration as he whipped around the mountain curve. The job thing was just not flying. Maybe he should just hide away for a while. His family owned a luxury mansion outside the small town of Marville. It would be a pleasant place to disappear to. He drove the long, winding route to the small town in the shadow of a huge mountain. When he reached Marville, he was low on power. He stopped for a recharge at a small, antiquated gas station that had been converted into a recharge station. He took his helmet off to cool off from the end-of-the-summer heat while he waited, regretting briefly that he hadn’t spent the money for a fully air-conditioned suit. He leaned against the building, which was still shiny from a fresh layer of wood protectant put over its log walls when a yellow jeep filled with loud, obnoxious Vandarian youths drove up. Shortly behind them came an official-looking white van with a logo that said “truant officer.'’ Out stepped a man in his thirties who, while in good shape, had the oddly shaped eyes and flat nose of a Vandarian born with an incurable defect and, if Jareth remembered right, a slowness of mind.

"Get in the van!" the man shouted at the kids.

"Make us, slow brain," jeered one boy.

"Yeah," said another. "Shouldn't you've been euthanized by now!" Jareth was just about to move to deal with the teenagers when a police officer showed up.

"Get in the van, now," Officer Kinder said, and he brought his tazer out. The kids paled, shut up, and got in the van.

The truant officer’s eyes fell on Jareth. He walked over. “You too,” he said slowly but firmly. Jareth was confused, forgetting briefly about the red dye in his hair that marked him as a youth of his race.

“Me too?” he repeated. The police officer put his tazer away and watched expectantly. The students seemed to show the truant officer more respect.

“Yes, you need to go to school too. No truancies on my watch,” the man said with his hands on his hips.

Jareth smiled in mild amusement. “I’m too old for school,” he said as he waved away a biting fly that came from a cow field nearby.

Angry tears welled up in the man’s eyes. “You think I’m to stupe to know. I know. I not that stupe. Your kind, red hair, school. You go. It’s good for you,” he sputtered out in a shaky voice.

Jareth flinched from the pain in the man’s voice. His mental capacity must have just barely passed the level that required euthanasia. Jareth knew too well how it felt to be made a joke of. He considered his options and sighed. The only way he could handle this while letting the truant officer keep his dignity, was to go with him and explain the situation to whoever was in charge of the school. “You caught me. I’ll go. You’re too smart for me,” Jareth said with his heavy Rillian accent and in short sentences. He understood the Vandarian language well now, but he still struggled to speak it.

The man smiled happily and patted Jareth on the shoulder. ‘You’ll see. It’s good for you.”

The police officer smiled to see the man whom he and the principal of the school secretly protected from euthanasia treated with some respect.

Jareth looked back at his bike and sighed. It was thumb-printed, secured only to him, so he would have to have a servant from the mansion drive him back to pick it up. He clicked an extra button on his keypad, and an anti-theft shield shifted over the bike. He got on the bus, and as it pulled away and drove to the school, he watched silently as the buildings of the beautiful, small, and quaint town passed quickly by. Soon, they reached a large and very old big building. Over fading gray paint were tall freshly painted letters that seemed out of place on the building that read "Marville High School." He got off the bus and walked silently inside the office. The paint was peeling off the walls, and yet, the office had a stately air. The disrepair was obviously due to a lack of funds and not true neglect.

At the front desk sat an old Vandarian woman with the dull look of one who had done the same work for years and had become apathetic to it. ‘’Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mitchel and the gang. Principal Bolton is waiting for you.’’ She looked over the school records and found no mention of Jareth.

She had lived in town long enough to know a Rillian diplomat family owned the huge mansion overlooking the lake. “Miss, this is a mistake, “Jareth said respectfully and patiently.

“Hum,” she said as she loaded in his information on a very outdated computer. “No mistake. You are obviously an under-aged child out and about during government-set learning times. That means you legally have to attend the local public school now, diplomat’s son or no.” She turned and glared at him through a thick pair of glasses.

“Look, at my age. I am adult.” Jareth stated in broken Vandarian with irritation creeping into his voice.

Her hair was as gray as her eyes, and she was short on patience. “These public records say you are seventeen. And the red highlights in your hair confirm it. I’ve worked this desk far too long to be conned, young man. As soon as you get your schedule, you’re going to class. No arguing,” said the secretary firmly and coldly, “unless you want to go to detention after school. I’ll call an enforcement officer if necessary."

Jareth growled under his breath in frustration. He’d dealt with enough bureaucrats in his time to know that he wasn’t getting past this woman’s stubbornness any time soon. He’d put up with the mess for a day and then bring in a legal assistant to straighten it out and delete his name from the records later. Yes, he was seventeen�"seventeen Rillian years old. With Rillian’s longer year, that put him at about 21 space years old. (He’d married early with permission from his family at 17 space years of age.) He grabbed the class schedule with extreme annoyance and attended each class.

As the day wore on, his annoyance dissipated. He noticed that, as long as he kept silent, he achieved a blessed invisibleness that he lacked elsewhere. Some subjects, such as Vandarian history and the Vandarianese[J1] , were not only quite interesting but challenging in a way that distracted him from the pain inside his heart. At the end of the day, he decided to let the mistake stand, and so he attended school every day, a quiet loner lost in the books that the school was rich in. This pleasant state of affairs went on until autumn came when one simple event and the incredible friendships that came out of it turned everything in his life upside down and changed it forever in unimaginable ways.

……[J2] 

Aleck ran her hands nervously through her bright red hair as she waited at the old oak door. Aunt Karla's long blond hair swirled about her as she swiftly double-checked everyone, making sure they had everything they needed for school. Aleck swallowed nervously. Her time at home since she’d come back from the tranquil and beautiful campus of the Triara mental hospital was up. She hadn’t been to school since the invasion of her world when she was eight years old. At the age of sixteen, she, who’d led troops into battle and devised ground battle strategies with more success than many older, more experienced men, stood trembling in fear of going into the unknown world of high school[J3] .

She felt Aunt Karla’s loving arm around her shoulder as she put a hot cup of Caja into her hand. Aleck took a sip of the powerful drug and began to feel the knots in her stomach relax, and the apprehension melt away. “You’ll do fine,” Aunt Kara said. Aleck looked into her aunt’s brilliant emerald green eyes with her sea green ones. Her aunt’s brilliant smile was reassuring. Aleck’s twin sister yelled in from outside in an irritated voice, “Hurry up! We’ll be late!”

Aleck stepped out into the brisk, cool, morning autumn air. She took a deep breath as the vast openness of the countryside, the brilliant colors of the fall leaves that covered the ground, and the delicious smell of ripe apples that had not been harvested from the trees hit her senses. A brisk breeze blew down from the nearby mountain lake, and the smell of pine drifted down as well. She saw everything at once. Her little cousin Brock, with his light brown hair and brown eyes (he looked the spitting image of Uncle Donald), jumped up and down like an overzealous rabbit with excitement. “Come on, Aleck. Just wait and see, school is so much fun!”

Her cousin Aiden, who also looked the like the spitting image of his father, smiled encouragingly as he toted a book bag over his broadening shoulders. ‘’All that knowledge of school from the heightened mind of a five-year-old,” he said. “Don’t worry; you’ll do fine.”

Her younger brothers, with fiery red hair like their sister’s and brilliant emerald eyes like their aunt’s, looked concerned. She knew it was because they knew the consequences would be terrible if she did not heal before the general recalled them again. Her twin sister glared at her with unsympathetic, irritated eyes and an overly made-up face. She straightened her gaudy outfit that was supposed to be the latest style as she tapped her foot impatiently.

With the Caja-induced calm came clarity of thought. Aleck looked over at her twin sister sadly as they walked toward the school. Since her return home, it was her twin sister, whom she used to be best friends with as a child, who she got along with the least. Her sister’s current views on life seemed incredibly petty, irresponsible, and immature. But, then again, what did a soldier, scared by war, know of being a teenage girl. Aleck was sixteen now. She had not been a child in years. She couldn’t be. Those who stayed petty, irresponsible, and immature died, either in the death camps of the Sharlakar or at the hand of the general, or even by the hands of another cyborg if their foolish behavior endangered others.

They made their way silently for a time for a half-mile down the dirt road, richly decorated with the fallen leaves of autumn from the great oaks that lined the sides of the road, creating a natural aisle, rich in color. They reached the first houses that marked the outskirts of the sleepy town. Almost every house that wasn’t a farmhouse had a picket fence and a wraparound porch. Soon, they reached the main street. There[J4]  was one gas station with a small restaurant attached to it, a tiny laundry shop, an old grocery store, the town ice cream shop, and a movie theater that showed only one movie at a time. Off the main street, there were two small side streets. One had the local doctor/dentist office, the police station, and a small thrift store. Down the other was the elementary and junior high/high school, along with a small bakery/coffee shop. Along the fourth street was a small city park with benches, picnic tables, and a small playground area. In the center of these four streets, on a block all its own, was City Hall, with a beautiful antique clock tower that added to the quaintness to the town.

Aleck was thinking how beautiful the town was when she was jerked out of her train of thought. She just about jumped out of her skin when a bright yellow jeep drove up with some teenagers in it who were about as obnoxiously dressed as her sister. They had their music on full blast and were honking their horn loudly. They slammed to a stop as they screamed in high-pitched yells and laughter for Alexia to get in. “See ya!” her sister sneered. She jumped in the jeep, and it sped away the short distance towards the school. Aiden set his jaw in anger at Alexia’s rebellion. He took it as a personal affront to his parents, who always treated all their nieces and nephews under their care as their own children. Aleck and her thirteen-year-old twin brothers,

Shem and Payten just stared silently after her. Such childish gestures were alien to them. They all viewed the world with more maturity than even some adults would. Though the twin boys had a reputation for mischief, it was more to keep people at a distance than an example of true childishness. Ever since the general used the boys’ Borg codes to force them to murder their best friend slowly, the boys stayed distant from everybody, even in the seeming safety of their uncle’s farm. At any time, they could be contacted by a controller and be forced into pulling off another assassination for the general, so they kept a distance in the name of being misfits.

Aiden, dressed in a school spirit football shirt and jeans, kept a running discourse about things with the farm and the family in general to ease his cousin’s nervousness. When they reached the elementary school, Brock took his bag down and pulled out a well-worn, brown, rough teddy bear with a missing eye. He handed it to Aleck, hesitantly at first, then boldly. “Here, take Vern. Just don’t let the teacher see him,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “But when you get nervous about school, you can pull him out and hug him when no one is looking. That’s what I did my first day of school.” Aleck smiled in gentle amusement and appreciation at her little’s cousin’s sweet act of kindness.[J5] 

“Thank you, Brock,” she said, carefully taking the well-loved bear and then making a show of gently and respectfully putting it in her bag. “I’ll take super good care of him. I promise.” She watched as her cousin ran with excitement to his class and then turned her eyes to the ever-looming building that was her school.

………

 

 

Odette sighed as she observed the other students slowly arrive in front of the double doors of the south entrance of the old high school. There were the “cool kid” elites, the partiers, the jocks, the intellects, and the computer geeks. They all seemed to fit into some social group. All except for three people: the tall Rillian kid, a loner who repelled any attempts at friendship; Ben Thomson, who would have normally fit into the intellects and computer geeks side of things, but who, because of his religious beliefs, had a strict moral code that caused others to label him a stuck-up goody two shoes; and herself, who tended to project a dark, gloomy nature and did not fit into any of the groups. She and Ben were friends, more out of a need for companionship than because they had a similar world view. She knew this much: Ben was anything but a stuck-up goody to shoes. Humble was truly a better word for him. But he had been marked and labeled with no one willing to look past the label to see him for who he was. She frowned as Mitchel Blank, a guy with a medium build and a wiry type of muscle that marked him as fast and athletic, his girlfriend Alexia, and their group of cronies walked in, being obnoxiously loud. Now they were stuck up. Why people wanted to be part of this cool kid elite group was beyond her. As far as she was concerned, they were just a bunch of cowardly bullies.

Odette looked on with curiosity as a new girl with bright red braided hair, sea green eyes, and a smattering of freckles across a cute, upturned nose walked up to the student entrance way. The girl was dressed very plainly in jeans and an olive green shirt. Odette looked at her with brief curiosity, trying to figure out which group she would fall into, when she noticed her friend, Ben, with his dark, mocha-colored skin and thin, six-and-a-half-foot frame, walking up lankly behind the girl in the awkward stride of a previously short kid who’d sprouted quickly and was not used to his body yet. Odette waved at Ben and then groaned as Ben tripped and fell into the center of Mitchel’s group of friends. They laughed at him and kicked him. Ben made an effort to escape, but before he could, one of the girls kicked him hard in the privates. He doubled up on the ground. Odette stood and gasped. How could she get her friend out of the situation without making it worse for him?

Then, before she could act, she saw the new red-headed girl approach the group with a look of cold, controlled rage on her face that chilled Odette right to her bones. When the girl spoke, her accent was odd, perhaps from one of the outer worlds. “What do you think you’re doing, Alexia!?”

As Alexia turned to the girl, Odette was stuck by how much they looked alike, with the same red hair, the same sea green eyes, only this girl dressed simply, and Alexia’s clothes were gaudy.

Alexia’s face turned red in rage and embarrassment. “Stay away from me, Aleck!” she hissed, annoyed at her sister’s untimely interference. Bitter over her twin sister's telepathic mind silence over the years, and humiliated that her sister had just gotten out of a cuckoo ward for who knows what reason, had turned Alexia hard against her sister. She also worried about her “popularity” and false fame. She feared her sister would embarrass her by screaming bizarrely for no reason like she did before she went to the nut house.

Ben started to get up during the distraction. Mitchel noticed. He grabbed Ben's hair and went to kick him down again. Then, fast as a blink, Aleck blocked Mitchel from kicking Ben. She grabbed Mitchel’s arm in a grip that forced him to release Ben’s hair. She looked him dead in the eye. “Alie ta zask ime weviet, ani one bi valie windock zask de man,” she said in a cold voice. Mitchel lost his temper. He was not aware he should fear this cold, calculating warrior who stood before him. He started to cuss, “You little...” His words got choked off. She moved in a blur, forcing Mitchel violently to his knees.

Aleck was going to give a verbal retort when, to Odette’s surprise, the Rillian quickly moved from his standard place against the wall into the conflict. He spoke in a heavy Rillian accent with an expression that looked like a strange mix of curiosity and shame. “He who would hurt one weaker than himself is a coward, but he who watches the one get hurt and does nothing is the greater coward,” he said, in interpretation of Aleck’s phrase, as he helped Ben to his feet. “Six against one makes this an unfair fight and thus an act of cowardice,” Jareth said for Ben’s sake, wanting to clarify that he did not think Ben was weak. In fact,

Jareth had watched the young man stand up for what he believed was right when anyone else would have backed down. Ben was physically awkward, yes, weak, no. Jareth had watched many a time as this group tormented one person or another and did nothing in the name of wanting to be left alone. And to his shame, this small, skinny, Vandarian teenage female showed more honor than he had. To his awe and mystification, she not only seemed to speak fluent Rillian, but she also wielded a martial arts form that was supposed to be known only to the Rillian high guard and the royal family.

Alexia mortified at what Aleck had done screeched, “How could you!!” She turned red. Humiliated in front of her friends by her own sister.

“How could you!” Aleck replied back icily. Then, with venom, “How could my own sister be such a…” she held back her words in frustration at the lack of connection she had with her sister.

Jareth did not hold back. “Beach," he finished helpfully. Odette approached the scene and corrected his pronunciation just as a teacher, who was also the football coach, rounded the corner.

“What's going on here?” Mr. Mathews demanded. Alexia looked away and smirked. It was no secret among the students that Mr. Mathews gave special preference to his star players, one of whom was Mitchel. She then turned back with a fresh a load of false tears in her eyes and told a lie that deepened the chasm in the relationship with her sister to an almost irreconcilable state. Now Jareth, Odette, Ben, and Aleck had to serve a full space month of detention for a fight Alexia claimed they had started.

Except for the morning incident, everything went well for Alexia. Odette, Ben, and Jareth helped show her the lay of the school. During the school lunch, she had a chance to meet up with her cousin Aiden. It was a very small school, so the high-school and junior-high [J6] cafeteria time was combined. Aiden raised his eyebrows as Aleck recounted details of that morning. “Makes me wish I had missed the junior-high football meeting this morning. I’ll let Mom and Dad know you’ll be late. They know Alexia well enough that she’ll be in trouble for this mess, not you.” Aiden sighed. He picked through what he thought might be meat loaf and changed the subject. “Are you feeling better than this morning?”

Aleck nodded as she swallowed the last bite of food. “Jareth, Odette, and Ben have helped a lot. They showed me around and explained all the rules.” Aiden shook his head in mild amusement. His cousin sure chose some odd friends. Then again, Aleck was far from normal. She was quiet, respectful, distant, and very sad. When Aiden’s Mom and Dad spoke to her, it was always like she was an adult. His parents never spoke of what they learned from the time his cousin was in the psych ward. He saw his mom crying over it more than once and his dad making an effort to comfort her.

Aleck was old for her age. She was certainly different than Alexia. It was hard to believe they were identical twins, though Alexia hadn’t always been mean spirited. Aiden believed her issues stemmed from a combination of anger towards life, not taking to the hormone changes well, and a poor choice of friends. One day, she would regret the friends she had chosen and the choices she had made. Of course, Aiden was thinking years in the future. He had no idea of the terrible events that would occur that would cause the one day to be much sooner. The lunch bell rang all too soon. He patted his cousin’s back in encouragement as they went off to their respective classes.

It was the end of the school day, and the four friends stood staring at the empty tiled hall that seemed to stretch endlessly before them. With the soap buckets and scrub brushes in hand, they all sighed, bent down, and got to work scrubbing. Jareth’s golden eyes kept drifting toward Aleck. What a mysterious girl! Where did she learn that form of martial arts? Why was it he could sometimes hear what she was thinking? Could she hear him?

Jareth barely saved the bucket from turning over. He jumped as he heard her reply to the questions in his mind. “Yes, I can hear you. I don’t know why we can hear each other. I learned the martial arts from a kind Rillian man who acted like a father to us after we were rescued from the death camps and before the general came. No one supervised us, so we often would spend time in a cave near the base. The Rillian realized we were orphans left to our own devices. He took us under his wing for the time he was at the base. He would come back and forth for years on some excuse and spend time with us. He asked his father permission to adopt us, but it was never given. That is, until the general came and refused any foreign help and no longer let foreigners on the worlds. We, unfortunately, never got to see him again."

It never occurred to Jareth to direct thoughts towards her mind. She smiled sadly, changing the subject from her "father," whom she missed. “I used to mind speak with Alexia all the time, until the Cutoff, that is. Then terrible things happened that Dad didn’t want her to see, so he ordered me to break the mind link. She hates me for it, but it was for her own good.”

Jareth put a wall up mentally and hoped it blocked his thinking. Terrible things? Cut off? Death camps? Kind Rillian, of high enough rank to teach an orphaned Vandarian the High Rillian Guard Martial Arts style, acting like a father to her? And who else? She said "us." The mystery around this girl deepened. He directed another thought at her. “Could you hear what I was thinking then?”

Aleck shook her head. “No, but you didn’t want me to.”  Jareth smiled to himself. Well, he could have privacy of mind when he wanted it; that was good. Jareth stopped the mind conversation and looked over to Odette, a short girl with straight black hair and slanted, double-lidded eyes, and Ben, a tall, lanky teen with light brown, tight, curly hair and light brown eyes. They both were scrubbing away next to him.

Jareth considered what had happened. He knew from observing the Vandarian teens that Odette and Ben were far from typical. They were more individualistic and independent minded, both not caring what others thought of them. He smiled to himself. There were worse people he could be stuck scrubbing floors with. Which, for a prince who was used to servants and maids doing his every bidding, was a novel and rather unpleasant experience. He frowned as he thought of how poorly he treated servants under him, whose job was to clean. Next time, he would show much more consideration and respect. This was no easy job.

Odette looked over at Aleck. She had her own list of questions to ask the mysterious new girl. “I heard you call Alexia your sister. Is she really your sister?”

Aleck nodded in response as she used a case knife to get some gum up off the floor. “Yes, she’s my twin. We got separated during the Cutoff. She wasn’t always mean like that. We used to be best friends when we were little. She changed so much and not for the good,” Aleck said with a sad sigh as her hands mechanically went in circles over the floor with a perfection that only a cyborg could manage.

Odette scrubbed hard at some spilled juice. “I know. She didn’t get mean until she started dating Mitchel and hanging with his goon squad.” Ben nodded in knowing agreement. They had all grown up together in this small town where everyone knew everybody. Up until a few years ago, they’d considered Alexia a friend. Unfortunately, the hurt feelings from that fallout were still very much there.

“What form of martial art was that that you used on Mitchel?” Ben asked in curious breathlessness as he scrubbed hard at the floor.

Aleck shook her head as she rinsed her brush in the hot, soapy water. “I’m not sure. It is something an old Rillian friend, who was like a father to us, taught my brothers and me to give us another tool to survive the war.”

“What war?” Jareth, Odette, and Ben asked in unison.

Aleck’s arms didn’t slow down their scrubbing even though the rest of her stopped. Her arms seemed to move independently from her. She knew the government never openly acknowledged the war and had a way of silencing those who would talk about it. Then again, Aleck would have never risen to the level of leadership she’d achieved if she could not assess the character of others. She knew these new friends would be smart enough to keep silence. “The government will not acknowledge it, and you could be charged with sedition if you speak of it,” she warned solemnly. “And because I still have nightmares about it, I’ll tell you once, but you must promise me never to speak of it again.”

Aleck looked over at them. They all nodded their heads in promise. “A race we never encountered before raided the outer worlds. They were a gray-skinned people, thin, with equally gray, bloodshot eyes and teeth like sharks. They put us in death camps and proceeded to slaughter us like cattle for food. A few of us escaped or were rescued from the horrors of the death camps, and we were able to start an underground rebellion. There were so few of us left that age didn’t matter. If you could aim and shoot at the enemy, you did. Those who came back with the most Sharlakar killed and with the fewest men lost they made into officers. We finally managed to drive them off our worlds, but there were very few of us left, and the damage done to our worlds because of the war made them uninhabitable, ugly places. The few adults left took refuge on the main worlds once the war was over.”

Odette perceived something odd in Aleck’s last sentence and asked, “And the children?”

Tears streamed down Aleck’s face. “Between the Sharlakar and that monster of a general[J7]  that the Vandarian government sent to “help” us at the very last space year of the war, my brothers and I were the only children to survive. In almost a whisper, she said, “And that was because we were too good at what we did for the general to kill us.” Aleck realized she was no longer scrubbing but sitting and rocking with tears streaming down her face. She found herself drifting into dreams of the past.

Blood splattered on her blouse as she dragged away one more of the general's victims from the door. She wept bitterly as she did so. She had watched that bruit of a general use her brothers’ cyborg codes to force them to kill her brothers’ best friend. She heard them screaming as he beat them. She managed to use some mild mental abilities to shift the general’s rage off of them and onto her, saving her brothers as she bore the brunt of the rest of the beating. She limped in pain. Her cyborg codes were now forcing her to dump the body of her brothers’ friend in the trash heap on top of the rest of the children's bodies. The very few children who’d managed to survive the death camps, unfortunately, were always sent to the base were the general commanded. She watched with tears as she saw Colonel Mires take her brothers to the infirmary. Unfortunately, the next time the general asked them to kill, they would do it, immediately, so he would not use their cyborg codes to force them to torture whomever they were to kill.

Aleck shook herself out of the dream. She needed her medicine that was in her bag but was shaking too hard to get it. Jareth, with tears in his eyes that, for the first time in his life, were for someone other than himself, quickly took her bag and found the medicine that Aleck pictured in her mind. He shook the can of the emergency hot Caja and opened it. He put it gently in her hand, being careful not to touch her. As princes went, he was, unfortunately, the spoiled, arrogant kind. Events of the last year and a half had broken that in him. She had left out a lot in the storytelling but had made up for it with the violent pictures in her mind. Bitterness filled his stomach as he remembered the time his second eldest brother had come back with the report of the problems and invasion he’d seen on the Vandarian outer worlds.

“Father, please, I know they are not of Rillia, but the people there are dying in masse. Their government is doing nothing I can see. A small force could be a turning point for them…” Zane pleaded.

“They are Vandar’s people, so they are Vandar’s problem,” said the king. Jareth stared after Cassia, who just waltzed by him with a smile and a wink. Who cared about some minor skirmishes with worlds that weren’t Rillia’s.

Zane pleaded again. “If the Sharlakar gain a foothold there, they will become our problem.”

“They’re a small outer-world problem that Vandar will have under control soon enough. It’s not our business,” said the king.

Zane looked sorrowful. “There’s three orphaned children there. Let me adopt them, please, and take them out of the war. It’s a nightmare for them.”

The king shook his head. “Give three Vandarian children the rights to the Rillian throne? I think not. Permission denied.”

Jareth closed his eyes. “All the children dead. Oh, Father, we should have listened to my brother more,” he whispered to himself.

Soon, the medicine had calmed Aleck, and Odette started talking about the upcoming fall harvest festival. By silent agreement, the friends avoided all mentions of the Cutoff and the war. Somehow, being able to talk about it a little with her new friends caused Aleck’s heart to hurt a little less than it did before.

At the end of the week, the newfound friends met over at Aleck’s in a fallow field were Jareth and Aleck agreed to teach Ben and Odette some of the Royal Rillian martial-arts style. Jareth liked the privacy of the fallow field that Aleck’s uncle owned. It was perfect for drills, and the thick layer of autumn leaves offered a fairly decent break for learning to fall. When it came to learning martial arts, Jareth and Aleck both approached it like a military drill, having them repeating moves over and over again. Both Odette and Ben groaned as Jareth commanded “again.” Who could have ever dreamed that there was a right and wrong way to fall? They spent all afternoon learning the right way to fall. Ben and Odette were saved by the bell when Aleck's Aunt Karla came out and called them in from the field, wiping soapy hands dry on her apron.

They headed toward the big, white farmhouse. Fall leaves crunched underneath their feet. Jareth took in the mountain rising behind the farm. He surveyed the edge of the lake that marked his family’s land. He wondered how often he’d driven by the outskirts of this very farm to his house that was only about two miles up. They made their way up the wooden steps to the screen-enclosed porch and into a very homey living room with dark green couches sitting on a well-polished wood floor.

Delicious smells floated in from the kitchen, making all the friends’ stomachs rumble with hunger. When Aleck asked if her friends could come over on Friday, her aunt and uncle told her to invite them for dinner as well.

Uncle Donald put the book down that he was reading to Brock and stood up with his hand extended first to Ben. “Hello.e Ben, right? And Odette, and you must be Jareth.”

Brock wiggled in excitement. “Hi, I’m Brock,” he said with enthusiasm, jumping down. Brock was at an age where he automatically claimed any friends of his older siblings as his own. “I like school. Do you? Do you want a see my room! Also, I have a fort in the back yard. And…”

Uncle Donald’s smile went all the way to his light brown eyes. "Ease up, Brock; you'll get a chance to show them around another day. Right now, I expect they’re a little hungry.  Why don't you show them where to wash up." Brock nodded eagerly and grabbed Ben's hand as he dragged him toward the nearest bathroom.

Uncle Donald had watched a bit of the training outside earlier and had already made some assessments of his own. Aiden was right when he said Aleck had chosen some very unusual friends. They were the kind of friends he wished Alexia would choose. Alexia was grounded already from the incident that had happened earlier in the week. She associated with a rough crowd of kids who were certainly not welcome around the farm.

Aleck’s friends were different than most of the teens around town. The tall, lanky young man named Ben had a reputation in town of having incredible integrity and honor for his age. Odette was darker and sadder somehow. Uncle Donald could tell from the snatches he’d caught of the conversation out on the field that she was the type who saw through the facades of people easily and would never pretend to be anything she was not. And the Rillian, the Rillian was a prince who did not want anyone to know who he was.

Uncle Donald had known immediately who he was. He was very good with faces. He had seen the podcasts about the divorce. Also, when he was younger and in the military, he ran into enough Rillians in his time of service to know one marked as high born, and the red dye in the young man’s hair was not enough to fool Uncle Donald. Uncle Donald also knew enough about people in general to figure out that the press had done an incredibly unfair piece of work on this young man. For Aleck’s safety, he needed an excuse to talk to Jareth alone, to make sure of some things.

The dinner at the table was superb. Each one of the friends, stuffed to the gills sat back from the table. Ben looked up at the clock and politely excused himself to go home since he had to be back home by nine. Odette said she would go with him since she had the same curfew. Before Jareth could make an excuse to leave, Uncle Donald asked if he could help him with one of the tractors. Jareth agreed but claimed to have a “curfew” of ten. They walked to the barn in silence.

Uncle Donald opened up the conversation bluntly. “You want to explain to me, your highness, why a grown Rillian prince is attending high school?” He laid a hand on one shoulder and looked the youth in the eye.

Jareth gave a start. Uncle Donald was sharp. Was he going to prejudge him like the others? Then he considered Uncle Donald’s quiet demeanor and patient, waiting eyes and knew instantly that he would not. He actually wanted to hear Jareth out instead of blindly judging him, and that was more than even Jareth’s own father had granted him.

Jareth took a deep breath. “After I caught Cassia with one of my officers in my own bed, I killed him and immediately had the guards arrest her. It was all so humiliating and painful, especially the way the press made it sound like I actually abused her and that was why she had the affairs. I just wanted to run away and hide from the world. I came to Vandar to hide from the world. Unfortunately, my divorce and the bad press followed me here. I tried four different jobs but got treated like I was a monster at all of them. I finally came  here.”  Jareth went on to tell Uncle Donald about the circumstances that landed him at the school and how he, Aleck, Ben, and Odette had met up earlier in the week.

“Your interest in Aleck?” said Uncle Donald.

“She is intriguing, sir, but she is still a child. I respect the fact that she stands up for what she believes. Odette and Ben also have honorable qualities like that. Yes, I can hear what she is thinking, but I do not talk to her mind unless she wants to talk that way. And I’m never alone with her or Odette. Ben is always along as well.”

Uncle Donald considered him carefully. The boy had been straight up with him. And yes, he was a boy. Jareth was the same age Uncle Donald’s oldest daughter Caroline, who was away at university now. He knew Jareth would in no way harm Aleck. Jareth was honorable and had a higher view of women than much of his race did.

But Uncle Donald was realistic and practical. In two years, Aleck would be eighteen and in her last year of high school. It might occur to the prince then that she was an available adult. Especially since the prince seemed to be drawn to Aleck and was obviously fascinated by her. Twenty-three and eighteen was not all that far apart. Uncle Donald would keep a close eye on him and get some promises from him over time.

 Uncle Donald was too savvy to forbid the friendship, especially when no harm was intended. He also was too savvy to ignore it completely. Drawing the Rillian boy in close and having him help out around the farm where Uncle Donald could keep an eye on him was the best tactic here. Anyway, a little down-to-earth, hard work would be good for the Rillian prince, who no doubt had been waited on hand and foot all his life. Uncle Donald had no idea how completely dead on he’d hit the mark. Jareth was in for the lesson of a lifetime. A lesson that only a humble farmer could give and that would impact Jareth forever.

Jareth showed up at the crack of dawn at the farmhouse. He had agreed the night before to help Uncle Donald with the harvest. It seemed a good opportunity to get more answers from the mysterious Aleck.

Aleck raised her eyebrows in surprise to find Jareth waiting in the living room with the others for the morning family meeting where chores were assigned for the day.

Uncle Donald smiled to see Jareth show up. “Ok, here is the break up today. “The boys will help me load the wheat into the truck. The girls will help Aunt Laura bring in the apple harvest. Everybody will help with crating up the apples and loading them into the truck as well.” Jareth looked a little disappointed as he followed Uncle Donald.

Sweat dripped down the Rillian’s forehead in spite of the autumn chill. He grunted as he lifted the last sheaves of wheat into the transport truck. “The naval academy wasn’t this hard,” he griped. The twins sniggered. He glared at the two skinny twin boys with irritation as they rapidly threw bale after bale onto the truck without breaking a sweat. Aiden was sweating, at least, but still loading up the bales fairly quickly. “Up to now, I’d have said I was in great shape,” Jareth muttered, his eyes glancing toward the orchard where Aleck was working.

Aiden overheard him and grinned. He patted Jareth reassuringly on the back. “Hard farm work muscles aren’t the same as gym muscles. In the gym, you stop after you feel the burn. On the farm, you keep going till the job's done. Makes for stronger muscles and more endurance.  Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it.” Being reassured by a thirteen-year-old that was outdoing him was not confidence building, more like humbling.

Aiden’s head turned at his Uncle’s call. ‘’Yup… I hear Father calling, and from the sound of that cow mooing, sounds like Old Betsy landed in the ditch again. We’ll have to get her out.” Aiden jumped out of the truck and rushed towards the ditch. Jareth hesitated and then followed out of curiosity.

Jareth reached Uncle Donald and stared down at the cow mooing miserably in the ditch. Aiden jumped in the ditch. “Stop staring and get in there and help,” growled Uncle Donald to Jareth as he grabbed the rope Aiden handed him.

Jareth turned to him, irritated at his tone. As a prince, he was not used to being talked to in such a way. “You did not ask me to.”

Donald raised an eyebrow and answered bluntly back, “Shouldn’t have to. You see someone who needs a hand doing somethin’, you help. That’s it, period. You don’t sit there watching them flounder, waitin for them to ask you to kick in and help. You kick in and help. Now move it!”

Jareth looked at Uncle Donald (who didn’t seem to care he was a prince), stunned, and then looked at Adian impatiently waiting for help in the ditch. He sighed and jumped in to help Old Betsy out. He quickly discovered that he hated that cow. It kicked back and hit him in the shin, and Jareth fell back and grimaced in pain and anger. “Just hand me the gun, Uncle Donald, and we’ll have steak,” Jareth said through his teeth.

Uncle Donald grinned at the prince wickedly. “And waste a good milk cow? I don’t think so. Anyway, Betsy is part of the family, and if it comes between you goin or her, well…[J8] ” Jareth glared up at him from the ditch. He muttered something about cow jerky under his breath, got into position, gave one more shove, and finally got the stupid cow out of the ditch with Adian’s help. As they climbed out, the ungrateful cow kicked at him again, and he jumped out of the way. Uncle Donald just chuckled as he led her away.

Soon, Aunt Karla was ringing the bell for snack time. Jareth went gratefully to wash up. He noticed that the girls came in just as sweaty as the boys, from picking the apples and bringing the baskets into storage. He stopped on the porch and looked over the land, amazed at how much work got done in one morning. He would never take a farmer for granted again.

At last, he got to work with Aleck. As he worked that day on the farm, he found that digging into the farming eased the pain in his heart in incredible ways. He was learning a load from Uncle Donald, whom he was finding to be a very wise and practical man. There was something in this family that his own lacked. He found he craved whatever it was and enjoyed it. He knew, somehow, he would be back again the next day, and the next, helping with the farm. Soon, lunch was underway, and conversation and laughter rang back and forth. He found himself laughing as well, laughing for the first time in ages.

Soon, it was time to clean up, and Jareth sat there waiting. Aunt Karla turned to him. “What, do you expect? To be waited on hand and foot? Get up and clean your spot.”

Jareth, who was expecting just that, blushed in embarrassment and apologized. “Sorry, I am used to being waited on. For most of my life, I had maids. I’m not sure what to do.”

Karla smiled at the prince’s honesty. “Come on; I’ll show you. I’ll let you give me a hand in the kitchen,” she said as she patted her swollen stomach with a smile. At that, Jareth was doubly embarrassed for letting a pregnant woman do all the work. For the first time in his life, he found his hands in suds washing dishes. As soon as the dishes were done, he heard a knock on the door. It was Ben and Odette. They were going to go out to the fallow field to practice.

Uncle Donald stopped Jareth. “You can join them in a little bit. I need your help in the barn with a tractor. I promise it won’t be more than an hour. Then you can join them.” Jareth went to the barn with Uncle Donald. Soon, they were looking at an old rickety tractor with faded green paint. “Open the hood.  I’ll be back with some tools,” Uncle Donald said as he headed out of the barn.

Jareth pulled the lever to pop the hood. He went to open it the rest of the way and found it stuck. He struggled with it until he kicked the tractor in rage and frustration, and to his horror, several things, including a door, popped off the tractor, but the hood was still not popped. Just then, Uncle Donald walked in and shook his head sadly. “Jareth, you have no patience and a short fuse. You need to learn to be patient and keep that temper of yours in check, or you’ll never get this tractor fixed.”

Jareth gritted his teeth, and under Uncle Donald’s watchful eye, started to fix what he’d broken. He had to redo stuff several times while learning to go slow and take his time. After an hour, Uncle Donald kept his promise and let him go. Uncle Donald looked after him, satisfied. If the boy was intent on sticking around, he needed to learn some things, and there was nothing like an old but faithful tractor to teach that.

After the training, the friends asked to go into town for a while. Uncle Donald gave them permission. Payton and Shem leaned against the tall maple tree, watching the friends walk away in the distance. “It is nice that Aleck has friends. It seems to help her heal,” Payton said, crossing his arms.

“Yet it is dangerous also. And that is no ordinary Rillian, no,” said Shem, unconsciously doubling his brother’s movement. “Aleck does not know he is Father’s brother. (Father is what the Children called the Rillian who’d helped them.) Nothing would thrill General Wallock more than the murder of a Rillian Prince, especially at the hands of a girl who is falling for him, hum,” said Shem, concerned and scowling at the friends walking down the road.

Payton cocked his head thoughtfully. “True, but for now, she needs the friendship. And we’ll downplay him carefully. Guard him without guarding. Her innocence will save her and him. The colonel guarded that well enough,” said Payton, grimly kicking back his foot against the tree.

“Agreed,” said Shem, pulling a leaf off the tree and twirling it thoughtfully. “But I wonder if he guarded her innocence too well. Her complete ignorance may save her from General Wallock. But from a divorced Rillian prince whose hungers have been awakened by marriage. That I wonder. The day will come when she is no longer legally a child, and he is drawn to her.”

“He is honorable and would not touch her to take her as his wife without agreement,” responded Payton as he knocked the leaf out of his brother’s hand.

“Yes, but Aleck will not understand what she would be agreeing to,” said Shem.

“It is a case of the greater evil,” said Payton[J9] . “Better Jareth takes her in her innocence than General Wallock discover what we do not wish him to know. Soon, General Wallock will recall her, and then they will be separated. The problem should be solved. We just have to make sure there is no recognition of him to begin with. Meanwhile, let’s make sure the Rillian does not get too comfortable here, hum,” said Payton, holding up a bottle of super glue with a glint in his eyes.

Shem raised an eyebrow and grinned. If they were going to guard the prince from a distance, they might as well have some fun with it.

Never before in his life had Jareth wanted to strangle two thirteen-year-olds more than he did at that moment. He sat humiliated, super glued to the porch swing. The girls went inside so Uncle Donald could cut his pants off of him. “Well, those boys have a strange way of looking out for their sister, that is for sure.” Uncle Donald chuckled. Jareth just hissed through his teeth, unamused, as Uncle Donald persisted with cold hands and cold scissors to get him out of the swing.

Soon, helping with the farm became a regular weekend routine, and on school days, Aleck, Odette, Ben, and Jareth would meet to study together. Their friendship tightened into the kind of bond that lasts a lifetime. The twins managed a load of mischief while, in their own way, they kept careful guard over the prince.

             A few space months later…

   

The friends ran after Aleck as she ran screaming and crying out of the old one-room movie theater. She hit a patch of hard black ice. She flipped out of control and landed hard on her leg, sprawling across the ground. Her friends ran toward Aleck in regret. “Who’s fantastic idea was it to see a vampire movie with her?” growled Odette as she glared at the boys.

Aleck lay on the frozen ground, not bothering to get up from where she’d fallen. She shivered, more from memories of the past than from the first winter snow. Jareth grabbed the Caja, shook it and tried to place it in her hand. It dropped and spilled on the snow. “Wake up, Aleck. It’s not real,” said Odette as she desperately shook Aleck’s hand.   

Ben brought out a funny looking little robot. “Aleck, look, I invented a cool, silly little robot. The kind you like. Wake up. Come on; you’ll want to see it.”

Aleck’s eyes were locked in horror on an invisible screen that only she could see. She did not respond to her friends’ pleas. Jareth, in desperation, reached out in his mind to hers and gasped as the violence of the vision came over him. He gritted his teeth as he watched the terrible memory unfold.

Aleck was a child with her twin brothers in a blood-soaked filthy cell. There were other frightened children in the cell, packed in so tightly that there was only a small amount of room to sit. Aleck was desperately trying to quiet a crying baby in her arms, who was wailing louder and louder. A gray-skinned people with razor-sharp teeth burst into the room, started to grab children, and to Jareth’s horror, started eating the children alive[J10] . One of them tried to grab the infant out of Aleck’s arms, and she desperately pulled it back from him. The gray creature laughed a shrill chilling laugh. Then it shoved the infant into its wide, gaping maw, along with Aleck's arms.

It was more than enough for Jareth, who pulled out of her mind and vomited violently to the side. His friends looked on in concern. They knew of the odd connection between the two and had speculated long hours in the local coffee shop as to why they could hear each other mentally. Once Jareth’s stomach settled, he gritted his teeth and prepared to go back in and help, though he wasn’t sure how, when he heard Odette say, “Wait.”

Odette had a feel for people in general like no other. “Create a safe spot in your mind. Bring her there. Help her view the memory from a distance.” Jareth glanced at her and nodded. Jareth closed his eyes, visualizing a green grassy hill from which they could view the horrors of the death camp from a distance. He went in her mind and picked up the little girl that was Aleck and took her to the hill. Once there, he held her as she sobbed, rocking back and forth until was aware of her friend’s comforting presence. No longer was it the child he was holding, but it was Aleck as she was now. Jareth quickly released her. Holding and comforting a child was one thing. Holding and comforting a teenage girl on the verge of adulthood was something else altogether. Aleck looked at her friend with a tear-stained face. Jareth helped draw her mind back to her surroundings.

“They ate my sister,” she said over and over again as she rocked back and forth and cried. Jareth put the Caja in her hands. He stood back from her in frustrated tears. How he longed to hold her, to comfort her, but there were reasons for the Rillian’s laws against touching women. He stood back and let Odette hold Aleck as she started to verbalize everything out loud and woke up even more from the vicious nightmare she’d almost gotten locked into. She drank her Caja, sobbed, and shared with her friends the source of her nightmares. They listened patiently until her sobs subsided. A slow snow began to fall in the setting sun that was amazingly beautiful.

“Come on,” Odette said, attempting to help her up. Let’s walk and talk about something else. Aleck tried to get up but fell back down on the ice. Ben gently helped pull the leg out from underneath her and gasped as sparks came out of a gash in her leg. Given her stories of the war, though, it should have come as no surprise. “You’re a cyborg!”

Aleck nodded with tears in eyes. “We all are. That’s how the people of the outer worlds survived the war. In the seconds after they ate my sister and the Sharlakar started to tear into me, there was a raid. The soldiers managed to rescue me and my brothers and a few of the other children.” Even Jareth stared at her in shock (though he was wondering what happened to her arms given her dream). Aleck wouldn’t blame them for walking away from her. Knowledge like that could get them killed. But they didn’t. Odette just had a look of sadness for her friend. Jareth concern, and Ben…

 Ben had a look of absolute excitement on his face. “It’s not far to my place. I think I have the stuff to fix that in my basement.” Given that Ben was considered the mad scientific genius of computers and robots at school, no one was terribly surprised. He was always coming up with new programs, inventions, and ideas. Dealing with honest-to-goodness, top-of-the-line cyborg technology was something he dreamed about.

Soon they got to Ben’s house. It was a tiny white house with ice blue trim attached to the ice cream shop his parents owned. They entered a small but rather nice living room with ice blue wooden shutters over the windows. Ben looked around with a sigh of relief. His parents and older brother must still be working in the ice cream shop in front.

 Ben helped Aleck down to a couch in a large basement that ran under both the ice cream shop and house. The basement was a mass of old computers and old electronics on one side, and on the other was a cloth curtain that ran across the wall separating Ben’s “bedroom” from the rest of the basement. He quickly had all Aleck's cybernetic limbs off. He was not only repairing them but improving them, with old thrown away parts of computers and old discarded robots. The top cybernetic experts alive at the time would have been amazed if they had been there to watch.

Jareth and Odette tried not to stare too much while talking with the limbless Aleck lying uncharacteristically helpless with cords coming out of her head as Ben worked on modifying and improving the programs that controlled her limbs. The pain of her past had finally become bearable with the loving support of her friends. Soon, Aleck was up and gasping in awe as a whole new range of options for her vision came through, and she started seeing with a depth she hadn’t seen since she’d lost her eyes at eight. Cyborg vision was sort of like looking at a road through a very dirty, spotted, heavily tinted windshield with colors showing in the vaguest of ways while the heat vision colors glared. While the vision Ben had given her was not quite the same as rolling down the window and seeing the crisp day without glass, it was if someone had lightened the tint and cleaned the window. The colors were still faint behind the heat vision colors, but it was still a vast improvement. “Thank you, Ben.” Ben just nodded and grinned from ear to ear as his friend touched all the things in the room that had become clearer with her new vision. He was just thrilled that he’d found a way he could help her by doing something he truly loved.

Author's Note

Would love some Critique