Satyr Play 03 Pt. 01

"The Fae are no longer restricting themselves to work to rule or house arrest. Last month, they returned to their day-to-day routines and seemed more cooperative than before, with one exception. Any requests for information about Queen Mab is met with silence. They won't or can't speak about her. It's almost like she doesn't exist for them." Michelle gave Marisa a sympathetic look.

"She broke the deal." Eyes turned to Mahati, who continued. "When Queen Mab enacted her spell at the party, she broke the deal Henry made with her for the glamors for his friends. She requested three favors in return. The deal I brokered was simple: The favors cannot, in any way, impinge upon Henry's physical or mental freedom. They must not, in any way, endanger him physically or mentally. And those two conditions also applied to those Henry considered important to him."

She watched that sink in with the other guests. "Mab used up her first favor, making Henry assist with the healing of the Ogre. No risk there. A simple exchange. The second favor was participating in the Fertility Ceremony. It was during that event that she broke the deal. She intentionally bound him against his will. This act impinged upon his freedom. Then she had his child and took its body, leaving the child to die of old age. This act physically endangered someone Henry considered important to him: his daughter. She attacked him with magic when he attempted to protect the child. This act endangered him physically, breaking the deal's third and final condition."

The others were realizing how severely the Queen broke the deal, an unthinkable breach for a Fae.

Mahati nodded to Henry. "Shortly after the night of Queen Mab's party, I filed a grievance against the Queen with the Fae Court, outlining the terms of the deal and the actions she took which broke all of its conditions. The court called one witness: Ikehorn, Queen Mab's former Enforcer. He confirmed the charges. The sanctity of honoring a deal is the cornerstone of Fae society. They aren't above finding a loophole in a poorly worded deal to wiggle out of having to fulfill their side, but our deal was solid and not open for interpretation. The court found their Queen at fault. Mab has been dethroned. They won't speak of her again. Unfortunately, this also means they won't help us get Mr. Walker back."

The room was quiet as everyone stared at Mahati incredulously. Henry moved to stand before her, then knelt at her feet. He took her hand in his and looked her in the eye. "Thank you for this justice for my daughter." He kissed her hand as she watched him with wide eyes.

Camila's mouth was open in shock, but nothing was coming out. She gave herself a shake. "You went after the Queen of the Fae in a Fae court?!? You realize that if you lost the case, your life would have been over, which would have been the best-case scenario!"

Mahati was trapped by the admiration in Henry's eyes. It made her feel a little drunk, and his touch was sending unfamiliar but intriguing tingles throughout her body. Her face was flushing again, so she tore her eyes away from him and looked at Camila. "I couldn't lose this case. My evidence was unquestionable, the deal was simple, concise, and watertight, and the crime perpetrated could not be ignored by the court. Before presenting my case, I also spoke with my mother to get her opinion of the Fae Court's current political climate. Mab's recent decisions have put her people at risk multiple times. There wasn't a better time to file the charges against her."

"Well, you certainly have a pair of brass ones on you to take on the Mad Queen on her home turf," Roy said with a wry grin.

Sigrid nodded. "Your confidence is admirable, but nothing is straightforward with the Fae. You took a major gamble; thank the stars above, it worked. This time."

Mahati huffed at the fear in their voices. She looked back to Henry, who was still watching her with awe in his eyes. She smiled as his hero-worship made her efforts feel so worthwhile. She'd never felt so good about her work before.

"Henry, let's serve the hors d'oeuvres," Tish said, drawing his attention away.

As he sent one last smile to Mahati on his way to the kitchen, he missed Yuko staring daggers at the dark-skinned woman.

Kali's subtle smile said she didn't.

Chapter 2

Colonel Gordon Crane leaned back against the seat cushions in the executive jet the army used to take him to and from Washington, DC, for his debriefings. Due to the sensitive nature of his mission, this was the best method for his travel. He assumed this was how his former commander, Colonel Devlin, also made his reports.

His mind flashed back to the day Devlin lost his life to something not born on this Earth. That little fact wasn't widely known. Whatever the hell that black ribbon creature had been, he knew it hadn't originated on the planet he called home. For him, it was the unequivocal proof that Devlin was right; they were at war, and for the first time, the enemy wasn't us.

Shortly after that tragic event, he'd been called to Washington for his first debriefing. He realized now how unprepared he'd been for what came next.

Then, he'd been First Lieutenant Gordon Crane, but he'd learned upon his arrival at the Pentagon that he'd been promoted to Colonel. He waited for the other shoe to drop. In his experience, rapid promotions only came in times of deep peril.

He'd been ordered to get everyone out of the town and personally report to the Colonel's chain of command in Washington immediately. Before he left, he'd delegated the task of bugging out to his next in command and headed for the closest airport. He'd had to run a gauntlet of the press, but he smartly kept his mouth shut. Next, he was sitting in a windowless meeting room in the Pentagon's bowels, across the table from three very grim-faced men in dark grey suits. He only recognized the Director of Homeland Security, Stephen Dawes. The other two were unknown to him. The conversation came back to him.

"Colonel Crane, do we have containment?"

Gordon looked at the speaker. "Yes, Director. The town was evacuated immediately upon our arrival. Most civilians were unconscious, and none of the conscious were in the proximity of the stadium. There are no civilian witnesses. Unfortunately, there's no sign of the glass entities."

After the... flying creature escaped from the gymnasium and massacred some of his teammates and Devlin, they opened the gym to find it empty.

Where the glass entities went was a mystery, as was where the flying creature came from.

"We received word that the Chinese troops are leaving the remote province empty-handed and minus their leader as well," Dawes admitted, and Crane stared at the men in surprise. "Apparently, a doorway opened, and the glass being stepped through."

"When did this happen?" Gordon asked.

"We understand it was the same night ours went missing," the Director replied.

Crane thought about that. "A globally coordinated extraction?"

"By who? Did anyone get past your people?" Dawes asked, and Crane shook his head definitely.

"No, sir. The gym was built on a solid concrete pad. We had soldiers on the gym's roof and a full guard encircling the building. The building was sealed. Unless... unless this doorway was opened inside the gym from the other side. The location the entities were moved to," Crane suggested.

One of the other men finally spoke. His voice was like tumbling gravel and had a thick southern accent. "Shit, that's a nightmare scenario I'd rather not consider. Doorways that open in our most secure locations, bypassing all security measures?"

Gordon could only nod. The idea gave him chills, too.

The third man finally spoke. He was tall and handsome, but his smile was slightly crooked. There was... a look in his eye, or maybe it was his body language, but something made the hair on Crane's neck stand on end to be the man's focus of attention. "Colonel Devlin spoke highly of you. He placed a great deal of faith in your abilities and judgment. We depended on the Colonel to spearhead sensitive missions where our society's stability was threatened. Can we rely upon you to the same degree?"

Gordon Crane was no fool. He knew the stakes Colonel Devlin played for, and some of the man's decisions led to questionable actions. This thought led him to recall their previous mission. That said, he had no doubt in his mind there was a greater good Devlin had been working towards in every case. Devlin never shared those decisions with anyone. Now, Gordon was being asked to follow in the man's footsteps to protect his country. He might not make the same decisions as Devlin, but putting his country first?

He could do that.

"Yes, sir," he said with conviction.

There was a subtle easing of tension in the room.

"We need you to get a handle on these pseudo-cloud creatures. We need to contain, control, or find a more efficient way to eliminate them. Let us know what you need, and we'll get it. Report only to us. This is top secret at the highest clearance level, and there must be no hint of this in the press or the public. Is this understood?"

"Yes, sir."

The Director opened his briefcase and slid a dossier across the table. "This is everything we know about the creatures."

Gordon saw the docket wasn't very thick. He glanced inside, and the data on the first plane-pseudo-cloud collision was there. As was a report on the Chinese glass entity.

"Have your troops been evacuated?" Dawes asked.

"I received word when I landed in Washington that they've left the town and have moved the quarantine zone out to a five-mile radius," he reported.

"The town will be sterilized to ensure nothing is left behind and to validate the cover story," the man with the gravelly voice said.

Gordon thought that was overkill and would generate more attention, but he wasn't being asked his opinion. He nodded.

"There seems to be a number of the larger pseudo-clouds congregating in Missouri. You might want to take your team there to start. Thank you for taking on Colonel Devlin's mission."

"It's my honor, Director." He stood as the briefing was obviously over. He placed the docket in his briefcase, locked it, nodded to the men, and left the meeting room.

He had his marching orders. He'd much rather be out in the field than in some stuffy meeting room any day.

Today, Gordon was once again returning from that meeting room. The pseudo-clouds' incursions were increasing, and months after that initial meeting, they still had no definitive plan for stopping them. They'd discovered it was possible to kill them, but their current methods were inefficient and not always successful.

Meanwhile, there'd been some disturbing news from the other side of the world. A colossal breach had formed over the South Pacific midway between the islands east of Australia and west of Fiji. It was caught by the satellite cameras of the Climate Research Division of the EPA. Where previous breaches let in individual pseudo-clouds, this one gave birth to a monster. The cameras were now tracking the vast cloud bank's trajectory, moving eastward towards Wallis and Futuna, seemingly flying against prevailing air currents. Then, it was discovered to be releasing smaller pseudo-clouds on multiple vectors. It was being likened to a flying aircraft carrier, only twenty times larger than anything the US had on the seas. They would have to do something about it before it got too close to the US west coast.

More disturbing were the stories of entire populations of remote Pacific island chains disappearing after these storms passed overhead. There's no sign of them or foul play, and their boats remain where they left them. No clues were left behind to explain their disappearance at all.

Crane's current mission had him heading back to the wheat belt, Nebraska this time. His team's research into the pseudo-cloud's internal anatomy was looking promising. They'd had the eggheads in engineering build them some new mapping radar tech. They planned on using it to discover what was inside the fluffy masses that let them direct their movement and store the energy they zapped each other with.

Satellite imagery showed two massive beasts moving towards each other, and they'd likely meet tonight at dusk.

He and his team intended to be there to meet them.

-=-

The huge clouds rumbled and collided above the expansive wheat fields as Sam sat in his harvester, watching from the edge of the property. Bolts of lightning occasionally shot down between them to strike the ground, and he grinned each time he saw it.

He'd been a storm watcher since he was a little kid. While his sister would run and hide under her blankets, he'd be right there by the window, taking it all in, fascinated and excited at the same time.

These new storms, though, he'd never seen anything like them. The clouds seemed... different. They didn't behave.... normally. They appeared to move with a will of their own. He'd even seen them fly against the wind!

The two thunderheads he was watching now looked like they were threateningly bumping chests. Well, that's what it looked like to him.

He picked up the mic on his radio to call his buddy Jake in the harvester, idling next to his.

"Do you see them? They're fightin'!" he gushed.

"Sam, they're clouds. Clouds don't fight. Hey! Didn't you hear that guy on TV last night? He explained this. It's just oddly charged ions accidentally released from that Commie nuclear power plant over in Russia. The stuff got up in the sky and collected in the clouds. I'm not buying that it was accidental, though!" his friend grumbled. Jake was convinced the Ruskies were the source of most of their woes.

Sam hadn't watched TV the night before as he'd been driving the back roads with Jeannie, his wife, who was also an avid storm watcher. She liked to make love in their truck while lightning flashed in the skies above them. His mind took him back to how wild she'd been last night.

Jake's voice interrupted his sexy thoughts. "The science guy said there was no danger from radioactivity, but the ions were makin' the clouds push other clouds with the same charge. Like magnets."

"Magnets?!? Pffft! What a load of crap that is!" Sam scoffed. "These clouds ain't behaving like magnets. I'm tellin' ya, they're alive and acting like... like..." he strained his mind to think of a creature Jake would recognize had the same behavior.

"Walruses."

Sam burst into laughter at Jake's quiet, almost reverent suggestion. He looked over at the man in the cab of the other big farm machine and was glad he hadn't pressed the mic button. His friend watched the vast clouds bumping each other, and his mouth was hanging open in awe. Sam was more than a little impressed with his friend's ability to take that leap. He pressed the button. "Exactly! It's like they're fightin' for dominance!"

Jake looked over with a grin. "King of the Clouds?"

Sam shared a laugh with him.

Suddenly, the sky flashed a brilliant blue-white, and the ground below their machines hummed loudly. The engines shut down on both harvesters, and the lights went off. They looked back at the towering clouds to see one had an enormous rip down its side. It began to slowly drift lower. Sam noticed the other cloud was rising twice as fast as the wounded cloud was falling. Rain started to hit the harvesters' windshields and seemed to be coming from the rip in the dropping cloud.

He cracked open the side window and saw Jake do the same. "Does that look like a wound to you?" Sam called out across the gap.

"Shit, yeah. Is this rain supposed to be the cloud... bleedin'?" Jake replied, his voice strained by wonder. "What's the rising cloud doi—GEEZUZ!!!"

While they'd both missed the lightning strike that caused the gash, they got an eyeful of the next. An enormous bolt of pure white light shot down the side of the rising cloud to stab deeply into the dropping one. There was a second flash, this one yellow and coming from the core of the injured cloud. An enormous fireball erupted upwards, following the path the bolt had carved. The upper cloud was now in trouble as the flames climbed its outer surface. After a moment, it released a deluge of rain, shedding its outermost layer to cool the rising fire. The victorious but now smaller cloud moved off to the south.

The rain began to taper off as Sam and Jake sat in their harvesters, gawking at the light show overhead.

The cloud that... exploded was quickly thinning out into a misting rain. Sam spotted something a little more substantial and shiny drifting down to land in the field not too far ahead of them.

He suddenly had a burning need to see that... thing from inside the dead cloud.

He needed something to carry whatever he found, so he grabbed his lunch bag and took his sandwiches out of the resealable container Jeannie had packed them in. She always put his lunch in sandwich bags, then the rigid plastic container to keep him from squishing them, and then that went into his lunch bag. For once, he was grateful for the extra packaging. Dropping the now empty container in the lunch bag, he opened the door to his harvester and stepped out, item carriers in hand. The mist cooled his skin as he turned his face up to it. It felt good!

"Sam! What the hell are you doin'? Get back inside! You don't know what that stuff will do to you!" Jake yelled from the now-open door of his own machine.

"It's just water! Besides, didn't you say the science guy said it was harmless?" Sam grinned at his friend. He climbed down from the cabin to the ground and set off across the field while he still had light to see with the late afternoon's setting sun poking under the clouds from the horizon.

"Dammit, Sam! Wait up!" Jake called out.

He waited for his friend to catch up, and the two men entered the field.

"Where are we going?" Jake asked, turning the brim of his baseball cap to keep the rain from his face.

Sam wiped his own face and pointed to a spot not too far ahead. "Something fell out of the dead cloud," he said and grinned at Jake's cautious look.

"Why are you bringing your lunch?"

Sam snorted. "I'm not. Just the container in case we find something worth keeping."

Jake nodded at his friend's quick thinking.

They came upon a sizeable ring-shaped scorch mark in the wheat and stopped beside it. The burned section was a good three feet from its outer to inner edges, and the inner circle itself had to be around twenty-five feet across.

"What the hell is this?" Jake exclaimed.

Sam looked at it, then looked up. Glancing back at the distance they were from their harvesters, he smiled. "I got it! This is where the first lightning bolt from the surviving cloud touched down. It musta been a tube!"

"Well, it burned the wheat to a crisp!" Jake growled.

"Yeah, but look at the growth inside the burn! Look how healthy it is!" Sam gushed.

They walked around the scorched zone and admired the tall, strong stalks. All the wheat was much taller and healthier than it usually was this time of year. They didn't normally harvest this early in the season, but the grain was ready, so they had to be. Sam turned away and hurried on to where the shiny substance fell. Jake caught up to him and looked down at what seemed like aluminum foil.

"Tin foil?!? We came out in this rain to look at tin foil?" Jake complained.

Sam scowled at him. "It was inside the cloud! That means something! Maybe it's like one of those foil party balloons! Or a weather balloon! This could prove they're man-made! Maybe there's some kind of radio control receiver nearby!"

Jake's expression suddenly turned angry. "It's the damn Ruskies! They're sending drone clouds over here to... to..."

"Zap our wheat?" Sam asked, suppressing his grin.