Majgen Ch. 015

'The truth is, Aejoa. The truth is...' Majgen's throat clenched tight and more tears threatened to flow. She decided to let them, after all it would be natural for a young adult to get scared and distressed in the face of possible doom; Surveillance couldn't possibly guess she was crying for the prisoner, not herself.

'The truth is I love you, Aejoa, I love you.'

Aejoa was not focusing on her, he had not followed her thoughts, but he began to feel a strong emotion flowing from her.

'Love,' he thought.'It feels love. I miss love. I want to feel love again too. But I never will, I am going to die here, here with the Evil Things.' He didn't care for the interrogator next to him, didn't care why she felt love, and for whom, but the warm emotion drew his attention.

'Its mind shield is down, completely down. I could attack it!' he hesitated, gaining a clearer thought.'Or I could reach out and feel its emotions, and gain a moments rest from my own misery.' Aejoa chose the latter course of action, and reached towards Majgen with his mind.

'Finally,' thought Majgen.'Scan me, scan as thoroughly as you can in your dazed condition. You have to understand my plan, Aejoa.'

Aejoa did not follow those thoughts, he was too confused and drugged to catch on to them, but one thing immediately became clear to him, as he touched her mind.

'It loves me, I am the one it loves right now.' He was awe-struck.'It loves me,' the reality of it reminded him of another yearning,'I want to feel someone loving me!'

'I love you, Aejoa.'

Shedding all inhibition Majgen, allowed herself to feel the love she felt for him. Aejoa swept into her mind, he surrounded himself with her affection, and for a moment he felt comforted. For a moment he cuddled mentally and pushed away his desperation.

'I am loved,' he felt, and then he began to scan her.'This is not possible, my mind shield is up, it cannot sense what it does from me,' Aejoa thought,'I am hallucinating. No, I want it to be real! Mind tricks. Drugs. Evil things, they are doing something to me.' With a wail Aejoa started crying again.

'Aejoa, trust your senses, I love you.'

'Trick, it's a trick. Stay on guard! Keep shield up!' Aejoa struggled to think straight, coherence came and went.

'Then keep your shield up, Aejoa, you don't need to lower your shield. You don't need to lower your guard. Believe I am tricking you, if you must.' Majgen's emotions made her thoughts clear.'You don't have to believe, but play along with me. Enjoy my love for you, and play along without lowering your guard.'

'It is a trick, I shouldn't play along.' Aejoa tried to strengthen himself to resist temptation,'But it feels so good. Play its game, you are going to die anyhow. If you play its game you will feel good a while. NO!'

'Aejoa look into my mind.'

'Illusion, it has to be illusion, I mustn't trust my senses.'

While the Ulballa fought yijejoan forces in a remote section of the War-Zone, Majgen struggled to convince a yijejo prisoner to co-operate with her to save his life. Two hours later the boarding began, the Ulballa had failed.

"Execute the prisoner," the faceless voice sounded like a near-panicked yell, a soldier passing the last orders before meeting her death.

"With pleasure," Majgen lied back, also with a yell. She was not sure Aejoa would co-operate, but there was no time for delays.

'Now, Aejoa!' Majgen thought and felt.

While yanking the drug administering device out of his back and pressing the gun against him, pretending to trigger it, Majgen hoped he would comply,

Aejoa slumped.

'I will play its game a little while, but I won't let my guard down. My senses tells me it's all real, its emotions, but I won't trust them. I won't let it trick me.'

Consciously he did not believe her emotions to be real, subconsciously, however, he did. Logically Aejoa believed the interrogator was trying to trick him, yet emotionally her love had soothed his torment and her desire to protect him had calmed him. Aejoa had stopped shivering, and was able to breathe slowly, soundlessly. To someone who wasn't paying close attention, he would look dead.

'I love you Aejoa,' Majgen felt, while turning to face the door. Making sure her body gave an appearance of being frozen in fear of enemies charging in any moment.'Whatever happens, it will all be over soon, Aejoa.'

The drugs that kept Aejoa awake had been administered continuously in exactly the dose needed, after only a few minutes without further injections he fell asleep.

'Sleep tight Aejoa, I hope you will wake in safety.'

Majgen looked down at the pulse-shooter in her hand.

'No matter who comes in that door, I won't need to kill myself, nor Aejoa. There is no time left for the humans to torture us. If humans come they will only have time to kill us, not torture us.'

She wasn't planning to use the weapon in self-defence either, neither against human nor yijejo. Majgen only held on to it to give an appearance of being ready to kill yijejos. At this time no one was watching the visual of the interrogation room, but Majgen couldn't know that.

For twenty minutes, Majgen stood guard over Aejoa, with a weapon she would not use. Tears streamed down her face as she watched the door awaiting the entry of her death.

'I don't want to die, I'm not...' In the middle of a thought Majgen went unconscious and slumped to the floor.

The boarding yijejos had taken over the Ulballa's life support systems, and had injected a sedative gas in the air supply. A gas that only affected humans. Any human on the Ulballa who breathed the general air supply, went unconscious the moment the gas reached them. The majority of humans left on the Ulballa, however, were professional soldiers, and had long since switched to face to face combat suits. With the air supplies of these suits, they kept fighting, determined to kill as many enemies as possible before going down.

Normally yijejos would have chosen to destroy a battle cruiser the size of the Ulballa -- rather than board it -- but this situation was not normal. The Ulballa harboured a Winin, had kept a Winin prisoner. The yijejo were convinced he would be dead, before they could get to him, but they hoped to at least retrieve his body. To at least bring that home with honourable ceremony.

----=(o)=----

A lone search and destroy soldier scouted rooms on his own. Trying to locate the Winin's body, while sedating any moving humans he met along the way. He avoided killing. They would take prisoners, many prisoners. They wanted a full a account of the last time of the Winin's life, and if the Winin had been tortured they would take revenge on those responsible.

He expected the Winin had been tortured, they all did. Every yijejo soldier knew what happened to high ranking yijejo prisoners -- and to many low ranked too -- if captured alive by humans.

'Yet another locked room,' he thought to himself, and placed charges, lock-picking mechanics, and a scanning device as appropriate. He moved to safety around a corner before activating the door-opening measures.

'The room contains life forms,' was the first piece of information his equipment gave him, he reached a limb around the corner and threw a scanner directly into the room. To get a full visual.

'The Winin! I found the Winin!' He immediately activated his communicator, on the line reserved for this particular find.

"Winin found, in room at my location," he checked his equipment for further information. "Room appears safe, one sedated human and the Winin. I am going in."

The soldier rushed into the room with high speed, engaging evasive movements as soon as he charged in, prepared for nasty surprises. There were no dangers in the room, his equipment had been correct in that. However his equipment had not prepared him for the surprise he did find.

He froze, staring at the Winin's body.

'Impossible,' thought the soldier.'It cannot be.' Joy rushed through him and he grabbed his communicator again.

"The Winin is alive," he yelled into the device. "I found him, and he is alive."

The noise woke Aejoa, the remnants of drugs still left in his body, kept his sleep lighter than it should have been after such a long time without sleep.

"Winin," said the soldier and kneeled for the revered civilian. "We have come to rescue you."

Aejoa blinked.

"But it was lying, it was an illusion."

"Winin?" The soldier approached carefully studying the Winin and the chains that held him down.

"Am I hallucinating?" asked Aejoa.

"I am real, Winin, I am here to save you," said the soldier. "Let me unchain you, Revered One."

The soldier cut Aejoa's chains one by one.

"We are still working on securing this battle cruiser, Winin, reinforcements are headed to here right now. Soon it will be safe to transport you off this ship."

Two other Search and Destroy soldiers arrived, while the first still worked on Aejoa's chains.

"Help me get up," ordered Aejoa, chains had held him in a crouch since his capture.

His body screamed in agony as it was finally allowed to stretch. The soldier helped him to his feet and carried most of his weight. Now standing, Aejoa's head almost reached the ceiling.

"How long have I been held prisoner?" Aejoa was still extremely tired, his nap had been far too short, but he felt more clearheaded now that he was less drug-affected.

"You were captured more than two days ago, Winin," a soldier replied, counting in yijejoan days.

"I thought, I was going to die," said Aejoa, speaking mostly to himself. "I didn't believe their tricks." His eyes fell on the sedated human on the floor.

'It is still here. Like it promised, with me till the end.' Aejoa shook his head.'No, that wasn't real, it was a trick.'

"That one," said Aejoa, lifting a limb to point towards Majgen.

A soldier went to the unconscious human and pointed his gun at it.

"Want me to kill it for you, Winin?"

"No, don't kill it," ordered Aejoa, in a stern tone. "Not yet at least."

Trying to clear his mind, Aejoa took a staggering step towards the human.

'How can something so scary be so small?' he wondered.

"Wake it," he ordered.

"We can't, Winin," one of the soldiers excused with a bow.

"Then get me someone who can, Soldier," demanded Aejoa. "I want to scan it, it has answers for me. It is my turn to interrogate." He spoke the last words with venom in his voice.

"We will take it prisoner, Winin, that way you will have plenty time to interrogate it in the safety of our ships."

Aejoa raised his head to stare at the soldier who had spoken.

'I want answers now!' he thought, but controlled his urges to rant on with further silly demands. "Make sure it stays alive then; I want it alive." The sleep-deprived rescued prisoner, Aejoa - Winin of Naonun, hesitated, then added, "And unharmed, no one harms it until I have my answers. Have I made myself clear, Soldiers?"

"Certainly, Winin."

"You," said Aejoa, pointing to the one who had offered to kill Majgen. "You will stay with my prisoner. It will be your responsibility that it stays alive and unharmed until I have scanned it."

In reality the Winin had no authority to assign military duties to military personnel, but out of reverence the soldiers ignored that fact.

"I will do everything in my power, to do as you tell me, Winin," promised the soldier, and carefully bagged the unconscious human in a net-bag. Normally he would have thrown a prisoner containing net-bag over his shoulder, but out of respect to the Winin, he held the bagged prisoner in his reaching limbs instead. Even for a human this one was fairly light-weighted, he would have no trouble holding it like that for hours if needed.

"Thank you for rescuing me," Aejoa said to the soldier who had been first to find him, and then he repeated to the others too. "Thank you."

'I am going to live on,' thought Aejoa, joy and relief rose through his tired body.'I will see my loved ones again.'

*

Copyright of Nanna Marker (lit ID ellynei)

This was not the end, this was the beginning of part two. Sadly, however, I need time -- the peace and quiet of my cave -- to finish part two, (book two if you will).

My apologies for the delay, it has to be; words cannot be posted until they are written, gathered, and edited.

One hundred and twenty-six thousand words you have followed Majgen for, if you made it this far. Please forgive me that I need some time to write, organise and polish the next hundred- to twohundred-thousand words.